Senior GST Council Official Held For Bribery

The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested a senior official of the GST Council, the top decision-making body of the Goods and Services Tax, on bribery charges during his earlier stint in Central Excise.

Monish Malhotra, a superintendent, is accused of receiving kickbacks to save private parties from action by the Central Excise. The money was routed through a conduit, identified as Manas Patra. The CBI recovered Rs 7 lakh from Malhotra’s house, said officials.

This could be the first instance of a GST Council official being arrested by the central agency.

Patra had deposited a major chunk of the bribe money in his own account and later transferred it to an HDFC Bank account of Malhotra’s wife Shobhna and his daughter Aiyushi’s account in ICICI Bank, according to the first information report registered by the CBI.

Malhotra’s arrest followed inputs that Patra was scheduled to deliver collections of the “last few days” at the residence of Malhotra on Wednesday along with a document detailing the receipt of bribes, a CBI official said.

Finance ministry officials said the arrest had nothing to do with Malhotra’s association with the GST Council. He was not in a position to deal with the public, they said, “The money he was allegedly collecting was for the period when he was in the Central Excise.”