New Delhi: In a swift disciplinary action, the Central Board of Direct Taxes Monday issued charge sheets against three senior Indian Revenue Service officers and stripped them of any official responsibility for violating service rules.
While hinting at a larger conspiracy, sources in the ministry of finance said the charge-sheeted officers acted without any authority, and prepared and publicised a paper for recommending tax hikes and circulating it to the media.
“The report advocated tax hikes, the imposition of wealth tax, inheritance tax, the imposition of COVID-19 surcharge and created panic and policy uncertainty among the people in an already economic situation,” said the sources.
The three charge-sheeted IRS officers are Prashant Bhushan, a 1988 batch IRS officer and general secretary of the IRS Association, who allegedly circulated the report to the media without any authority.
The other two officers are Shri Prakash Dubey, a 2001 batch IRS officer, who holds the position of joint secretary in the Officers’ Association, and Sanjay Bahadur, a 1989 batch IRS officer, both of them have been charge sheeted for misconduct and violating service rules.
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While Prashant Bhushan was Principal Commissioner of Income Tax at Delhi, Shri Prakash Dubey was working as a director in DoPT and Sanjay Bahadur was Principal Director Investigation of North East Region.
Shri Prakash Dubey and Sanjay Bahadur have been accused of asking the junior officers, without any authority, to prepare the report and then leaking it to the media through the association.
