"Unauthorised issue of refund of income tax has been detected wherein the user ID of retired officers was misused to issue fraudulent refunds," Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam told in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.
He was replying to a question on whether a huge scam in refund of I-T has been detected in the Income Tax department by using login IDs and passwords of retired officials of the department by present officials.
"The matter has been referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for detailed investigation," he said.
The minister said some measures have also been taken to curb the problem.
"Automatic transfer of PAN from one assessing officer to another has been disabled and the user ID of an employee will be automatically disabled on his date of superannuation," he said.
