BHOPAL: An Indian Revenue Service (IRS) 2009 batch officer posted as assistant commissioner has demanded a CBI inquiry against top officers including the then chief commissioner of the central excise department S K S Somwanshi (MP & CG) accusing him of incurring a revenue loss of Rs 600 crore by giving undue favours to a Madhya Pradesh based Gutka Company .

The officer, Srawan Kumar Bansal, now posted in Bhilai claims “he and his pregnant wife (who is also an IRS officer of same batch), were transferred from Bhopal to Cochin and other places with malafide intention by his boss when he refused to favour the company".

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CBI has taken up the complaint for investigations.

According to the complaint lodged with CBI, M/s Kaipan intended to install high speed Gutkha pouch packing machines to evade the central excise duty . These high speed machines were purchased from M/s Uflex industries, Noida whose chairman Ashok Chaturvedi, which the complainant says was arrested by CBI under prevention of corruption act for bribing the then chief commissioner of central excise Delhi zone for the allegations of helping the tobacco and pan masala companies in tax evasion.

“It is also noteworthy that new high speed gutkha machines purchased from M/s Uflex was costing approx Rs 90,00,000 (Rs ninety lacs per machine) whereas the earlier machines operational at M/s Kaipan had costed only Rs 60,000 (sixty thousand only per machine). That since these new machines costed more than 150 times the old machines therefore proper verification of the machines was necessary,” he wrote.

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“I, as a revenue officer committed to my duties was inclined to take any decision on the matter with due examination, diligence and appropriate precautionary steps to protect the Government revenue in accordance with the Pan Masala Rules 2008 But on the contrary, the then Chief Commissioner S K S Somvanshi was pressurizing me to act in favour of Gutkha lobby and install these high speed machines without proper examination and due diligence. That Somvanshi was hand in glove with the gutkha manufacturer is also clearly evident from the copy of his call details during the period of purchase and installation of these highly sophisticated high speed machines,” Bansal has alleged in his complaint, a copy of which is in possession of TOI.