GST Council superintendent gets arrested by CBI, on graft charges

New Delhi:The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested a superintendent of the newly formed GST Council for allegedly receiving bribe through one of his close assistants.

The superintendent, Monish Malhotra and Manas Patra, the alleged middleman, were arrested by the CBI on Aug 2, an official said.

According to a report by HT, this could be the first case of a GST Council official being arrested by the central investigating agency.

It is alleged that Malhotra, who was earlier posted in Central Excise, has been indulging in corrupt practices of extending undue favours to private parties by not taking action against them in return for periodic bribes. The agency came to know that Patra was allegedly establishing contact with the parties on Malhotra’s behalf and collecting illegal gratification on the quarterly or monthly basis.

The FIR alleges that Malhotra’s aide then deposited these bribes in his own account to camouflage the bribe and later transferred the money to an HDFC Bank account of Malhotra’s wife Shobhna and his daughter Aiyushi’s account in ICICI Bank.

The CBI team carried out the search of the premises and arrested Malhotra and Patra along with the bribe money and some documents, he said.