The CBI sleuths on Thursday arrested two central GST officials assistant commissioner Chandan Prakash Pandey and superintendent Shahabuddin on charges of accepting Rs 2.5 lakh as bribe from an RJD leader. Acting on a complaint lodged by RJD MLC Subodh Kumar Rai, the CBI officials laid a trap and arrested Pandey from his office located on Budh Marg here. The members of the raiding team recovered the cash from the assistant commissioner’s possession. The superintendent of GST, Shahabuddin, was also taken into custody. The assistant commissioner was later taken to an undisclosed location for interrogation. In his complaint, Rai had alleged that the assistant commissioner was demanding Rs 8 lakh as bribe to settle the issues related to a flour mill in the name of his wife. “The assistant commissioner had demanded Rs 8 lakh but I agreed to pay him Rs 4 lakh, which he accepted,” the MLC said. Rai claimed that he used to look after the business establishment.
The assistant commissioner had carried out a surprise inspection of the flour mill and allegedly detected some lapses. “I agreed to pay the amount, which he had demanded from me in lieu of providing some relief,” the RJD MLC said, adding he subsequently informed the CBI, which registered a case against him. As per the strategy chalked out by the CBI, Rai talked to the assistant commissioner over phone and it was finalised to pay the first instalment in the office. “The CBI officials pounced upon the assistant commissioner after I handed over the cash to him,” Rai said, adding another staff of the office has also been quizzed. Rai also provided evidences of the conversation between the assistant commissioner and him, which he had recorded in his phone. The CBI officials also conducted searches at his Kako house in Jehanabad district. The arrested officials would be produced in the special vigilance court in Patna after thorough interrogation.
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