The Enforcement Directorate (ED) announced on Monday that it had detained an IRS officer from the Income Tax department in connection with a Rs 30 lakh bribery case in Gujarat. Santosh Karnani, a former assistant commissioner of Income Tax based in Ahmedabad, was arrested on June 2 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), according to the federal agency. The money laundering case is the result of a CBI FIR. Karnani has been in prison since the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) apprehended him. The ED petitioned a special PMLA court in Ahmedabad to take him into jail for questioning. The judge ordered Karnani to be held in ED custody until June 9, according to the agency.
The case against the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer involves allegations that he accepted an initial “bribe” of Rs 30 lakh from Rupesh Balvantbhai Brahmbhatt of Safal Constructions Private Limited via an Angadia (a courier company that transports cash between traders and businesses) firm named Dhara Angadia. “It also emerged that there were multiple suspicious transactions totaling at least Rs 4.25 crore involving the said account maintained with the said Angadia firm during 2021-2022,” the ED said. The Gujarat Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) set up a trap to catch Karnani when he was accepting the bribe in October of last year, but the officer escaped. The ACB eventually transferred the matter to the CBI.
Post Your Comments