CBI arrests controversial IRS officer SK Srivastava in corruption, forgery case

New Delhi: The CBI on Tuesday arrested controversial former Income Tax Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, who was compulsorily retired by the Central government along with several other high-ranking IT officials earlier this year, in a corruption and forgery case.

The probe agency had registered a case against Srivastava in July this year, accusing him of cheating, forgery, and obtaining undue advantage. Officials here said that Srivastava was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday after he had been non-cooperative with officials probing the case.

The CBI had also conducted raids at 13 locations related to him and his family members earlier this year, from where they had recovered jewellery worth Rs 2.47 crore, cash of Rs 16.44 lakh, and watches worth Rs 10 lakh from Srivastava's Pandara Road residence. Bank balances of Rs 1.3 crore were also discovered.

In fact, soon after the case was registered, the Allahabad High Court had dismissed Srivastava's application for an anticipatory bail in the case. The ex-IT Commissioner had submitted that he was falsely being targetted by the CBDT Chairman, according to court documents. Srivastava had contended that nothing in the CBI's FIR talks about allegations of corruption and yet charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act had been added.

The CBI had vehemently opposed Srivastava's plea in court saying that multiple summonses to the accused had gone unanswered and that his arrest was necessary as there was a real risk of him tampering with evidence given his long-time high post at the Income Tax department. The agency had also noted that Srivastava was trying to politicise the case unnecessarily.

Sources here said that Srivastava had employed a private individual by the name of Amardas to write and type up the appeal orders for him when he was posted as CIT Appeals 1 in Noida and held additional charge of Appeals 2 in Noida in exchange for a monthly salary.

In fact, officials here said that Srivastava had decided on 104 IT appeals out of which 13 cases were out of his jurisdiction and purportedly uploaded the orders sometime June 2019, backdating them to December 2018.

The CBI has alleged that Srivastava accessed the internal ITBA system of his office between June 11 and June 13 with his RSA token to upload the backdated orders. An RSA token is a personalised pass key issued to officials which allows them to access the ITBA system.

Srivastava, a 1989-batch IRS officer, was compulsorily retired on June 10. Moreover, he allegedly manipulated the dispatch records to show that he had dispatched these orders on June 7 when in fact, they were dispatched on June 14. Sources here added that the appeals orders were suspected to be passed in exchange for undue favours.