Senior I-T official arrested for accepting bribe

CHENNAI: Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) on Tuesday arrested a senior Income Tax department official from Chennai and two others, including the managing director of a Chennai-based private educational firm, on charges of accepting a bribe of Rs 50 lakh from the latter in a tax evasion case.The sleuths nabbed additional income tax commissioner Andasu Ravindar (45), an IRS of 1991 batch, along with Kishore, managing director of Everonn Educational Ltd, Perungudi, and an auditor Uttam Chand Bora while Ravindar was allegedly trying to transport the bribe money to a safe location from his residence, CBI officials said.The agency also carried out search operations at Mumbai, Hyderabad, Vizag, Bangalore and Chennai resulting in seizure of Rs 58 lakh and over two kilos of gold. They also seized another Rs 58 lakhs with incriminating documents and 2.32 kilos of gold from the residence of the addistional commissioner.During a search operation on August 4 at the premises of Everonn Educational Ltd, which provides in-school education through internet, Ravindar had found that the firm had allegedly concealed taxable income of Rs 116 crore. After the search, Kishore allegedly contacted Ravindar through a chartered account T Bhanu Sekar to conceal Rs 60 crore of the Rs 116 crore detected by the search and survey department, officials said.Sekar, who was well known to Income Tax officials, arranged a meeting between Ravindar and Kishore in Mumbai on August 10 to negotiate and reduce the Income Tax liability, agency officials added. Ravindar allegedly demanded Rs 50 lakh as bribe for concealing the taxable income and asked the money to be handed over at his residence located inside the Income Tax office at Nungambakkam.As planned, the managing director allegedly brought the money packed in a cardboard box at the scheduled time.While Ravindar was allegedly trying to smuggle this amount to some unknown place through Bohra, CBI sleuths nabbed them and seized the bribe money, officials said.The agency has registered a case of criminal conspiracy and slapped relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act against the trio.