Telangana High Court hears Rs 5 crore corruption charge against tax officials
Hyderabad: Under the guise of GST, it seems an “inspector raj” is on, the Telangana High Court observed on Friday while hearing a case filed by a steel trader who alleged officials asked him to pay Rs 5 crore as bribe to get out of a tax-evasion case.
The court questioned the jurisdiction and powers vested in the GST authorities in arresting traders on the allegations of tax evasion.
A division bench comprising Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice Tadakamalla Vinod Kumar observed that it seemed the GST officials were wrongly following the lines of the local police handling matters of law and order.
The bench heard a petition from J.S. Sridhar Reddy of Bharani Commodities, which runs steel business in the wholesale market. He submitted that he was in Singapore on February 27, 2019, when a search of his house and office premises at Punjagutta was done by the GST anti-evasion cell. After the search, they took his wife to their office at Basheerbagh and she was made to remain there up to 4 am the next day, after officials accused that his firms indulged in a tax evasion of the order of Rs 8.74 crore.
He told the court that the officials Anand Kumar, C. Sudha Rani and B. Srinivasa Gandhi had demanded that he pay Rs 5 crore as bribe to them to escape from the case.
“These officials told me that the amount would be handed over to the principal commissioner M Srinivas and the money will be shared between officials as per a secret understanding between them,” the petitioner said.
The petitioner said the tax evasion charges were being registered against him based on statements given by third parties and he was not allowed to cross-examine them.
Citing Supreme Court orders in similar cases, in which the apex court allowed cross-examination, the petitioner complained that the GST officials took a different stand. Thereon, the bench criticised the GST authorities and allowed the petitioner to cross examine the third parties who had given statements against him and his companies.
