Jabalpur: CBI catches CGST officers red-handed taking bribes, full story

Trilok Chandra Sen, a tobacco businessman, had filed a complaint against 5 CGST (Central Goods and Services Tax) officers to the CBI for taking a bribe of around one crore rupees. Trilok, a resident of Dausa, Rajasthan has two factories in Damoh, MP under the names of Gopan tobacco products and Khwasaji Beedi Pvt Ltd. While Trilok was in Rajasthan, his managers Bhagirath Rai and Giriraj Vijay take care of the work in the factory,

On June 18th, while Trilok was away in Ratlam, Rajasthan, a team of eleven CGST officers,  headed by Superintendent Kapil Kamble raided the factory. A ‘panchnama’ was filed and the factory was sealed on the spot. Trilok was informed about the raid by his manager Bhagirath and thus began the extortion. 

Superintendent Kamble called Trilok on WhatsApp and asked for a bribe of 1 crore to settle the matter. He further went on to threaten Trilok, mentioning that failing to do so would cost him a fine of 10 crore for tax evasion and his factory would be auctioned to collect the amount. 

From June 22 onwards the negotiation began where Trilok pleaded with the officers multiple times to reduce the amount, The officers initially agreed to 90 lakhs which then went down to 35 lakhs with a penalty challan of 10.68 lakhs on both the factories. Trilok tried to arrange money from his friends and relatives. In the process was hospitalised due to the impact of the stress on his health. Eventually, he had to resort to using all his savings and selling his house to collect the required amount for the bribe. 

On June 5th, Trilok made the first instalment of 25 lakh rupees along with the 10.68 lakh penalty amount, through his manager Bhagirath. Kamble took the manager to another room where his team sat counting the bribe amount for 4 hours straight. The remaining 10 lakhs were to be given after the release of the documents that were seized by the team. 

But, the constant threat and demand for money continued over the WhatsApp call. Tired of it, Trilok finally decided to file a complaint after consulting with one of his friends. On June 12th, he reached the CBI office in Jabalpur and spoke with SP Richpal Singh. Following this, the conversation was recorded using an additional recorder since WhatsApp calls do not have a feature to record calls.

A plan was eventually formed to catch the perpetrators red-handed, On June 13th, Bhagirath was sent with the money, with a special kind of chemically coated on it. The CBI team stood at a distance while the money was being exchanged and counted by Kamble. The CGST officers were finally caught and the amount of the bribe was confiscated. The five officers were taken into custody and an FIR was filed against them for corruption Along with Kamble the four others were identified as, Soumen Goswami, Vikas Gupta, Pradeep Hazari and Virendra Jain. 

On reaching Kamble’s house, the CBI officers were shocked to see his property, worth 10 crore equipped with all luxury facilities. Kamble was reported to be the one leading the team with the extortion. Along with him, the other four have been kept on remand till June 20th. 

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