Bhubaneswar,(Voice of India/Binaya Kumar Das): Odisha vigilance Sunday arrested three persons including a commercial tax and GST officer on the charge of bribery, evasion of taxes and causing loss to the government, officials said. Binay Bhusan Tripathy, an assistant commissioner of enforcement unit, Jajpur along with two private persons Jyoti Pattnaik and Md Golam Sad has been arrested for evasion of taxes and misappropriation of government money over Rs 5.85 lakh, the vigilance officials said.According to the vigilance, Tripathy had intercepted one goods vehicle carrying scrap worth Rs 8.89 lakh at Revena in Jajpur district in May this year. He detained the vehicle at a dhaba on the NH and demanded Rs 2.5 lakh bribe from the owner to release the vehicle. However, when the bribe demand was not met, in contravention to the laws of GST, Tripathy, with an ulterior motive, illegally sold the entire scrap to another scrap dealer, and realized nominal tax and misappropriated Rs 5.85 lakh. The investigation revealed that Tripathy was parking the bribe money collected as cash deposit in various bank accounts of his family members and later converting them to fixed deposits, the officials said. The anti-corruption wing of Odisha government registered a corruption case and arrested the GST official, Jyoti Pattnaik, who falsely claimed ownership of the goods and Md Golam, a scrap dealer, who received the goods, they said. After receiving the allegation, the vigilance has launched a separate enquiry to assess disproportionate assets owned by Tripathy, if any.
