42 excise officers suspended, 4 transferred

In a move that has spread shock-waves in the Central Excise & Customs department, 42 officers have been suspended in connection with the Excise rebate scam. Four other officers have been transferred in the same connection.

Giving details to media-persons, Sushil Kumar Solanki, commissioner, Central Excise commissionerate-I, Surat, said, "Forty two excise officers, including twenty four superintendents, fifteen inspectors and three tax assistants, have been suspended on Friday. The suspensions are in the wake of the Rs 14.70 crore Excise rebate scam that took place between April and June 2004 and was detected recently."

"Of the suspended officers, 36 are at present posted in Surat, while remaining six are posted in Vapi, Daman and Vadodara. However, all these suspended officers were posted in Surat - I commissionerate, when the scam took place," he said.

"The officers have been suspended for their failure and suspected complicity in the scam," he said.

The four Group A officers who have been transferred in this connection by the chief commissioner are deputy commissioner G S Purohit transferred to Central Excise, Dibrugarh, deputy commissioner A K Agrawal sent to DGICCE, Delhi, assistant commissioner M P Solanki transferred to Central Excise, Kolkata, and assistant commissioner Dharmendra Singh transferred to Central Excise, Vishakhapatnam.

Highly places department sources said that these four officers are also likely to be placed under suspension in the near future.

It is worth mentioning here that the central government has introduced various schemes for promoting exports.

Under the rebate scheme, duties or taxes paid by the exporters are refunded by the government.

In this case, bogus export documents and bogus shipping documents were produced before the Central Excise department by the scamsters, to secure bogus duty rebate to the tune of Rs 14.70 crore.

Investigations so far have revealed involvement of 35 parties in the scam. Ten of these have already been arrested, while efforts are on to nab the remaining.