Mumbai: Retired GST officer, wife get jail for Rs 1.2 crore unaccounted assets

MUMBAI: Observing that the offence is grave and serious with dishonest intentions and as abuse of official positions to grab money as gratification being alarming and needing to be checked, a special CBI court this week convicted and sentenced a former Goods and Services Tax Department superintendent posted in the city, and his wife, both senior citizens, for amassing unaccounted assets worth Rs 1.24 crore, disproportionate to the former officer's known sources of income. The assessment period was from 1994 to 2018.

While the former officer, Prasiddh Dubey (66), was sentenced to four years simple imprisonment, his wife, Vimla Dubey, was sentenced to two years in jail for aiding and abetting him.

In a 138-page judgment copy, Special Judge S H Gwalani concluded that Prasiddh, a public servant, accumulated assets in his wife's name by way of a smokescreen to shield ill-gotten assets accumulated by him by abusing his official position.

"Accused No 2 (Vimla), being the wife of accused no 1 (Prasiddh), a public servant, is privy to all transactions and had an opportunity to shield the ill-gotten assets. Therefore, it is concluded that the accused public servant is guilty of accumulating disproportionate assets to his known source of income and, at the same time, failed to satisfactorily explain the nature and source of such disproportionate assets," the judge said.

The judge also said that a known source of income means income received from any lawful source and such receipt has been intimated. The judge stated that the ill-gotten assets of Rs 1.24 crore are to be forfeited to the state govt. The couple was also fined Rs 1 lakh each.

Sentencing the couple, the judge said, "Keeping in mind legal principles and legislative intent behind enacting provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, circumstances like the mere advance age of the accused and long-drawn trial, which are common features in cases filed by CBI, certainly cannot be a ground to absolve the accused from the gravity of the proved offence." Following a plea by Vimla, the judge suspended her sentence subject to her paying the fine.

Special public prosecutor Vimal Soni cited evidence of seven witnesses and documentary evidence to seek conviction of the accused. The case was registered by CBI's Anti-Corruption Branch in 2018. The investigating agency conducted a probe after receiving information about the accused.

Prasiddh claimed that during service, he received the award for ‘Excellent Service' and that the investigating officer failed to consider his family's income. In her defence, Vimla claimed that she had an independent source of income through a garment business, renting out property, and agriculture. The judge, however, observed that Vimla's income tax records showed that her income was insufficient.

"Record indicates that only two properties purchased by accused no. 1 during the check period were intimated by him to his department...," the judge said.


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