Convicting a powerful revenue officer: An 18-year journey

New Delhi: Over the years, what has been more essential than clinching evidence is the sheer resolve of investigators in taking a bribery case against a top bureaucrat to its logical end. After nearly 20 years of pursuing the case, the Central Bureau of Investigation has managed to secure a conviction against 1973-batch IRS officer, SP Singh, who had accepted a bribe of Rs 15 lakh in 2001, in exchange for favouring a Hyderabad-based company in the hook for evading Excise duties worth Rs 4.88 crore.

As a Special CBI court in Vishakhapatnam sentenced Singh, then a Commissioner-level officer in the Excise department, to two years in prison and imposed a fine of Rs 20,000, officials with direct knowledge of the case said that it was a long and arduous journey, that was made harder because of Singh's position as a senior civil servant.

The CBI had booked Singh and his co-conspirators in the corruption case in 2001. According to the agency, Hyderabad-based Vasavi Group had raked up huge amounts in Excise duties evaded and to escape consequences, Singh had demanded a bribe of Rs 25 lakh.

The deal was arranged so that a Vasavi employee would keep the money in Hyderabad and Singh would send his co-accused to collect the bribe amount. But the CBI laid a trap for them and caught them red-handed during the exchange of bribe money.

Officials here said that Singh had arranged for a Customs clearing agent, Alok Guliya to visit Hyderabad along with two businessmen from Delhi, Sanjay Dhawan and Surinder Puri, all three of whom were arrested in the trap.

In subsequent raids related to the case, the CBI found that Dhawan had Rs 2 lakh in cash and one IPS Malhotra had Rs 3 lakh in cash. Malhotra later confessed that he was parking the money on behalf of Singh, one senior official disclosed.

While the CBI had filed a chargesheet against Singh and three others in 2004 itself, the trial took forever to reach its logical end. Some officials here said that given Singh's position, witness tampering and influencing testimony were dangers that could not be overlooked.

And this is not the only case against Singh. A senior official said that there is another corruption case against the now-retired IRS officer, which is currently under trial. Moreover, Singh was known to be litigious and kept dragging investigators from one court to another.

In fact, the Central Board of Excise and Customs had served Singh with a chargesheet in 2003, with respect to several violations of the CCS Rules, after which he applied for voluntary retirement and stepped down in August 2005. The Board had immediately ordered a disciplinary enquiry into the matter and appointed an officer to be in charge of the proceedings.

But eventually, some of Singh's conspirators in the Vasavi case turned approver for the agency, which combined with the CBI's evidence has resulted in the former bureaucrat's conviction. The Special court, however, acquited the three other charge-sheeted by the CBI in the case.