Commercial Taxes Assistant Commissioner, husband arrested for taking bribe in Coimbatore

The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) on Monday arrested an Assistant Commissioner of Commercial Taxes and her husband on charges of demanding and accepting bribe. The arrested have been identified as Maheswari (48) and her husband Dhanasekaran.

According to the DVAC, a real estate company had claimed Input Tax Credit (ITC) in excess by mistake, for which Maheswari served a notice. The firm reversed the excess ITC it had claimed and filed the response. 

DVAC Additional Superintendent of Police C. Rajesh said the Assistant Commissioner initially demanded a bribe of ₹1 lakh for closing the file, which she later reduced to ₹75,000 and then finally to ₹60,000.

According to the officer, the Assistant Commissioner gave the mobile number of Dhanasekaran to the accountant of the firm and asked to hand over the bribe to him

Unwilling to pay the bribe, the accountant, on behalf of the firm, approached the DVAC office with a complaint, based on which a trap was laid under the supervision of Inspector G. Arumugam. The accountant was asked to come to a place near Avinashi Road on Monday and hand over the bribe to Dhanasekaran inside his car.

The DVAC team, assisted by Inspector Ezhilarasi, was waiting in another vehicle nearby and caught Dhanasekaran red-handed when he accepted the bribe amount on behalf of his wife, said Mr. Rajesh.