The Government of India compulsorily retires 15 very senior officers in the Income Tax Department on charges of corruption. (Representative photo) The Government of India compulsorily retires 15 very senior officers in the Income Tax Department on charges of corruption. (Representative photo)

Sending across a stern message to bureaucrats taking kickbacks for facilitation tax evasion by companies, the Centre sacked 15 senior tax officials facing probes in corruption cases on Tuesday, reported Reuters.

Only last week on June 11, the government had dismissed 12 senior Indian Revenue Service (income tax) officers following charges of corruption, extortion and professional misconduct against them.

The officers who have been ousted include Ashok Agarwal (IRS 1985 batch), Joint Commissioner Income Tax, S K Srivastava (IRS 1989 batch), Commissioner (Appeal), Noida, Homi Rajvansh (IRS 1985 batch), B B Rajendra Prasad, Ajoy Kumar Singh (CIT) and B Arulappa (CIT). Other names in the list include Alok Kumar Mitra, Chander Saini Bharti, Andasu Ravindar, Vivek Batra, Swetabh Suman and Ram Kumar Bhargava.

India improved its ranking, among 180 countries, by three points to 78th on a global corruption index in 2018, according to the annual index of the Transparency International, an anti-graft watchdog.

(With inputs from Reuters)

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