Four top officials of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and a managing director of a real estate firm were arrested by the CBI on Monday while trying to settle a tax evasion case being probed by CBDT officials. Among those arrested were Kunal Singh,Director of Income-Tax investigations at Kanpur,Additional Director (Investigation) Ratan Singh,Assistant Director Umakant,Inspector Harish Dhaundiyal,MD of Eldeco Group Pankaj Bajaj and CA who acted as a tout Anil Jaiswal. They were produced in the court of Special Judge at Patiala House in Delhi. The accused are remanded in CBI custody for seven days. Chairman and Managing Director of of Eldeco S K Garg was also named by the agency in its FIR. Earlier,the CBI had registered a case against the I-T officials for accepting huge amount as bribe from Eldeco official for settling a case of tax evasion. While Kunal Singh,Dhaundiyal and Bajaj were arrested from Delhi,Ratan Singh and Umakant were caught from Ghaziabad. Jaiswal was arrested in Kanpur. The agency mounted the surveillance on I-T officials after they received a tip off that Bajaj has sought favours from these officials in connection with a survey carried out by I-T on March 28 in connection with complaints of alleged tax evasion running into several crores by Eldeco. It was alleged that before listing the recoveries from Bajajs lockers on March 28,the I-T officials allowed him and his family to allegedly take away major portion of cash and gold stored in them in lieu of illegal gratification. The value of gold and other valuables taken out from the lockers runs into several crores,said officials. During the raids on Monday,the agency seized Rs 30 lakh from the residence of Kunal Singh in Delhis Hauz Khas area. This money was allegedly part of the bribe paid by Bajaj. Following the recovery,the teams carried out searches at residential premises of Bajaj in Greater Kailash in Delhi,Ratan Singh and Umakant in Ghaziabad,Jaiswal in Kanpur and Dhaundiyal in Vinod Nagar in Delhi which led to recovery of huge amount of cash,valuables and documents. Searches were carried out in the I-T offices of Kanpur and Noida where the officials were posted. CBI spokeswoman and DIG Binita Thakur said,The senior level officials of the private company along with a CA based in Kanpur contacted several officials of I-T department to settle their tax evasion matter by illegal means and allegedly paid huge amount of bribe to the said officials of I-T. The CA was working as a middleman.
