GST Council superintendent held on bribe charge

Monish Malhotra, the superintendent, and Manas Patra, the alleged middleman, were arrested by the CBI on Wednesday evening, an official said. During searches, the CBI has recovered Rs seven lakh in cash from the premises of Malhotra, CBI spokesperson R K Gaur said in a statement. This could be the first instance of a GST Council official being arrested by the central investigation agency.

It was alleged that Malhotra, who was earlier posted in the Central Excise, had been indulging in cor-rupt practices of extending undue favours to private parties by not taking action against them in return for periodic bribes.

Patra, on the instruction of Malhotra, had collected money from many private persons during his stint as a superintendent in the Central Excise, it was alleged. The agency came to know that Patra was allegedly establishing contact with the parties on Malhotra’s behalf and collecting bribes on quarterly or monthly basis.

Patra had deposited these funds 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 FIR alleged.

Finance Ministry officials said Malhotra was managing correspondence from various stakeholders in the GST Council and was not in a position to deal with the public. They said the money he was allegedly collecting was for the period when he was in the Central Excise.