Chandigarh: Former income tax officer Rakesh Jain convicted in assets case
Ramkrishan Upadhyay
Chandigarh, March 22
Special Judge, CBI Court, Jagjit Singh has convicted a former income tax officer, Rakesh Jain, in a disproportionate assets case registered by the CBI in 2013. The court has acquitted his wife Suneet Jain. The court will pronounce the quantum of sentence on March 24.
Rakesh was posted at the I-T Department’s branch in the city. The case was registered under Section 13 (2) (read with13 (1) (e)) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, after CBI recovered three gold bars (1kg each), documents pertaining to investments in shares, Rs 23 lakh in cash and other things from his residence and lockers. The CBI had arrested the accused while receiving a bribe of Rs 50,000 from a property dealer in Sector 20 here on February 6, 2013. His parents, who were also accused in the case, died during the trial.
The trap to catch Rakesh was laid following a complaint filed by a property agent of Sector 20. The agent was served a notice by the IT Department. The CBI claimed the agent met Rakesh, who offered to sort out the matter for him in lieu of Rs 3.5 lakh, and a deal was finalised at Rs 2.5 lakh.
In the chargesheet, the CBI alleged the assets recovered from the accused were worth 125 per cent more than his known sources of income. The CBI claimed the accused officer, while serving in the Income Tax Department from July 20, 1995, to February 5, 2013, amassed assets worth Rs 1,09,68,415 disproportionate to his known sources of income either on his name or on the name of his wife and parents. The CBI alleged that none of the accused had been able to account for the assets acquired by them during the “check period”.
The accused were convicted after Public Prosecutor Narender Singh argued that the prosecution had proved the case beyond a shadow of doubt.
The CBI Court had earlier awarded rigorous imprisonment of four years to him in the bribery case in 2020 registered under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
