TNI Bureau: Odisha Vigilance today arrested Sarita Barik, the Assistant Commissioner of State Tax of Bhubaneswar-IV Circle. The Vigilance sleuths has nabbed her yesterday while taking a bribe of Rs 25,000.
She was nabbed while accepting the bribe from an owner of Bakery Shop (complainant) dealing with food products for reversal of ITC (Input Tax credit) for the tax period of FY 2020-21 and exemption of fine and penalty.
As informed by the Vigilance Department, the Food Products firm owned by the complainant was issued a show cause notice by Sarita Barik for payment of fine and tax of Rs 2,27,147 towards reversal of Input Tax Credit (ITC) for FY 2020-21. After coming to know about this, he approached Barik and requested consideration, but Barik demanded bribe Rs 25,000 for exemption of fine and penalty for the above mentioned period.
On this, the complainant approached the Vigilance authorities narrating the incident. Following this, the Vigilance Officers nabbed Barik while taking the bribe from the complainant inside her car in front of Aakash Institute, Madhusudan Nagar, Bhubaneswar. The entire bribe money was recovered and seized from her possession.
Following the trap, the anti-corruption team conducted simultaneous searches on three locations linked to Barik from Disproportionate Asset (DA) angle.
During the searches, cash Rs 1.45 Lakh, gold 222 grams, deposits around Rs 60 lakh, jewellery bills and documents related to purchase of property in Bhubaneswar etc were recovered.
She will be forwarded to the Bhubaneswar Vigilance Court later today.
Further report follows.