The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday lodged an FIR against Deepak Pandit, an Assistant Commissioner of GST and Central Excise, who is also the brother of filmmaker Ashoke Pandit on charges of corruption and amassing disproportionate assets.The officer was last posted in Bhubaneshwar on February 25. The agency has also booked his wife Arushi and two sons - Ashutosh and Divyansh.
As per a report in India Today, the central agency raided six locations in Mumbai and one in Bhubaneshwar. The officers recovered documents pertaining to ten flats and shops in Mumbai, around nineteen fixed deposits, mutual funds and term deposit receipts. The search also revealed around ten bank accounts in the name of Deepak Pandit and his family.
Deepak Pandit: A serial offender
Interestingly, this is not the first time that Deepak has come under the scanner of authorities. In November last year, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs on the allegations of owning disproportionate assets. The department acted on an anonymous complaint against Pandit which accused the officer of abusing public office for his personal gains.
Pandit was accused of amassing disproportionate assets in prime locations of Mumbai. What is more shocking is the fact that for a major part of his service he was attached to the AIR Intelligence Unit (AIU) of Mumbai airport customs. As per the rules laid out, the officers are generally transferred across the nation after serving a given period in one place but Pandit managed to remain attached to the same unit for more than a decade.
His career witnessed a meteoric rise after joining as a mere clerk in 1985, he was later promoted to the post of Preventive officer and later in 2002 as Superintendent. He eventually went on to become Assistant Commissioner in 2014.
The CBI registered the case against Pandit from a period starting from 2000 to March 31, 2014. During this period he allegedly amassed property and assets worth Rs 4.39 crore out of which he spent around Rs 61.80 lakh. The FIR also outlined that the amount of Rs 3.96 crore at his disposition is 376 percent more than his know sources of income.
