A special court on Wednesday sentenced a 53-year-old income tax officer to four years imprisonment for accepting a bribe of Rs 75,000. Preetha Babukuttan was found guilty on charges, including under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
In 2015, the CBI’s Anti-Corruption Bureau booked Babukuttan on the complaint of a man running an engineering firm. The complainant said income tax returns were filed for his company by a chartered accountant but it came under the scrutiny of income tax authorities. His firm received a notice from Babukuttan, directing him to produce relevant documents. He was subsequently told Babukuttan was demanding Rs 1.3 lakh as bribe to complete the assessment. He met Babukuttan in March 2015, during which she told him the tax liability of his firm would be around Rs 4-5 lakh for 2009-10. Babukuttan also told him she would reduce the liability and demanded a bribe for it. A trap was then laid and Babukuttan was arrested, Special Public Prosecutor P K B Gaikwad told the court.
Babukuttan had claimed that she was falsely implicated. “It is clear the accused demanded, accepted the illegal gratification from the complainant, other than her legal remuneration and obtained for herself the pecuniary advantage by corrupt of illegal means and by abusing her official position which certainly amounts to a criminal misconduct by a public servant,” Special Judge M R Purwar said in his order.
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