How These Three Infosys Techies Got Busted For 'Taking Bribe' To Clear Income Tax Returns
Paying bribe at government offices is not anything new, and it has almost become the norm that if you have to get something done, you have to make the concerned officer 'happy'.But what if you have to bribe employees of private companies too? As unbelievable as it sound, this has happened.?
Three employees of software major Infosys in Bengaluru were arrested by the police on charges of taking bribes from tax-payers for speedy processing of their refund.The employees worked at the Income Tax Department’s Centralized Processing Centre in Bengaluru where I-T returns are processed before refunds are initiated. Infosys is the managed services provider for the I-T Department.?
The arrested men have been identified as Kalyan, Prakash and Devishwar Reddy, all hailing from Hyderabad and residing in Bengaluru. According to the Electronics City police, the accused was attached to the CPC's data division and had demanded and collected money through his friends from some major taxpayers with whom he had contact over the phone for processing their I-T refund claims at the earliest, which is usually initiated in 60 days.?
He would allegedly charge them four per cent of the refund money as his commission to process the returns.The police suspect they may have received as much as Rs 15 lakh in commission, however only Rs. 2.37 lakh has been recovered from the accused.?
The crime came to light after one of the taxpayers refused to pay the money and shared the audio recording of his conversation with the accused with Income Tax officials who held an internal enquiry and then approached the police.?
An investigation by the department revealed that the accused were taking advantage of the refund processing time to directly contact taxpayers and assure speedy processing for a fee. It is still unclear how long the accused have been doing this and if more employees of Infosys is involved in this. It also has raised questions on the data security of citizens.?
Following their arrest, Infosys on Monday announced that the three employees have been dismissed. "Infosys is aware of the allegations against certain employees who have been found violating the company's policies. The employees have been terminated, after a thorough internal investigation, the city-headquartered company said in a statement.Infosys takes any breach of its policies and code of conduct seriously and "we are fully cooperating with the authorities," it said.?
Police have registered a case of cheating and criminal breach of trust against them.
