New Delhi, May 27: CBI has arrested three Income Tax officials from Mumbai for allegedly demanding and accepting bribe for releasing the refund cheques of a person. Acting on a complaint, sleuths of the investigating agency caught income tax officer Mohan Ajwani and two of his tax assistants - Vivekanand Wisave and Meena Pahlajam - red-handed while allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 25,000 from a transport company, a CBI spokesman said here today. The officials had demanded an illegal gratification from the complainant for releasing cheques relating to refund amount of Rs 1.2 lakh, he said. The complainant was owner of a transport company in the metropolis and had been filing his tax returns for three consecutive years enabling him to get refund of the income tax returns.

After their arrest, the CBI also carried out searches at their residence and official premises and found "unaccounted" cash worth Rs 37,500 from the possession of Ajwani.
All the three were produced before a special judge in Mumbai who remanded them to judicial custody till June nine, the spokesman said.

Bureau Report