Declare Senior Tax Officer SK Srivastava An Absconder: CBI Tells Court

A special court will list SK Srivastava, one of 12 tax officials forced to take compulsory retirement in June, an absconder if he fails to appear before it at its next hearing, scheduled for September 9. SK Srivastava, an ex-IT commissioner, Income Tax Appeals (Noida), who also filed fabricated and false cases against NDTV, has evaded repeated summons by the CBI to join the investigation against him.

In July the CBI filed a first information report (FIR) against SK Srivastava, 56, a Revenue Service official of the 1989 batch, on charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy.

The FIR alleged that he, as IT Commissioner for the Noida 1 and 2 regions, had decided 104 tax appeals that were uploaded between June 11 and June 13, but had their entries manipulated to show June 7 as the date of dispatch - three days before he was fired by the finance ministry.  

In addition, as many as 13 of those appeals were outside his jurisdiction.

Last month the CBI raided his residence in Noida, recovering documents and other electronic evidence. They also recovered jewellery worth Rs 2.47 crore and cash worth Rs 16.4 lakh, as well as watches worth Rs 10 lakh.

A further Rs 1.3 crore was found in bank accounts belonging to SK Srivastava and his family members. Incriminating documents relating to immovable properties and bank lockers were also seized.

The CBI also raided a boutique in Delhi's Vasant Kunj area that is run by his wife, and the office and residence of two chartered accountants - Anil Prahlad Kumar of Ghaziabad and KP Garg of Delhi.

Government documents in possession of NDTV say he has been prolonging the departmental inquiry against him for a decade by filing as many as 75 petitions in the Central Administrative Tribunal, the High Court and Supreme Court.

"It is his standard tactics to coerce the senior and other departmental officers to fall in his line or else he starts defamatory campaign against such officers," the government dossier read.

SK Srivastava has also been accused of sexual harassment by two women officers of the Revenue Service.