Disproportionate assets case: I-T commissioner gets 7-yr jail term; mother, 90, also jailed

A special CBI court here has sentenced a serving Income Tax Commissioner to seven years' rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 3.50 crore on him in a 14-year-old disproportionate assets case.

CBI Special Judge Sujata Singh on Wednesday also awarded one year jail term to the officer Shwetabh Suman's 90-year-old mother Gulab Devi besides sentencing his brother-in-law Arun Kumar Singh and his close aide Rajendra Vikram Singh to four years in prison after convicting them under IPC.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 3.50 crore on the IT Commissioner in the DA case after convicting him under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The CBI had registered an FIR against the official in 2005 for acquiring assets beyond his known sources of income in Dehradun, Ghaziabad, Bihar and Jharkhand during the period from April, 1997 to March, 2004.

"Investigation established that the accused abused his official position as a public servant to acquire immovable and movable assets from his ill-gotten money amounting to Rs 3.13 crore in his name and in the name of the co-accused persons, CBI spokesperson Nitin Wakankar said in a statement.

Suman, a 1988-batch IRS officer, was also arrested by the CBI in a separate case in August last year from Guwahati for allegedly seeking a bribe of Rs 50 lakh for giving relief to a businessman in a shell company matter.

The bribe amount was recovered from a middle-man and searches were carried out on the premises linked to Suman in Guwahati, Jorhat, Shillong, Noida and Delhi, the agency had claimed.

The agency had also arrested Pratap Das, Income Tax Officer (Audit), Guwahati, Pranjol Sarmah, who transported the cash, and Ramesh Goenka, an advocate and Income Tax consultant.