Ill gotten wealth – place of earning not relevant for jurisdiction – Customs Commissioner facing prosecution
A Customs Commissioner is charged by CBI of amassing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income. A case is filed in a Delhi Court. He challenges the jurisdiction of Delhi Court and the case reaches the Supreme Court which says that where he amassed his wealth is not really relevant and in any case he had a house in Delhi which earned him rent.
V K Puri, a 1976 batch officer of Indian Customs and Central Excise Service, is charged with amassing properties around the country which were far in excess of his known sources of income.
The investigating officers, according to the chargesheet, worked out that his earning in the entire service period along with rents and interests could not be more than Rs 34 lakh.
Puri owned a plot of land with a double-storeyed house on it in Dehradun, a big flat in Delhi’s SaritaVihar, a plot of land in Indore, another plot in Bangalore apart from bank deposits and investments in his and other family members’ names.
Investigations revealed that Puri, a resident of Dehra Dun, inherited along with his brother and two sisters a house in that city. His assets grew remarkably during his Indore posting in 1988.
Explaining his acquisition of wealth, Puri and his wife furnished photocopies of 86 bills showing apparent sale of gold jewellery and silver utensils to Shree AmbikaJewellers to the tune of Rs 87 lakh between 1992 and 1995.
Wherever the Puris had stayed during this period, they went to the small shop in Indore to sell their family silver and gold.
The investigators said that the ingenious gold selling ploy had almost foxed them. However, further probe revealed that the Puris had never filed any wealth or gift tax returns or made any declaration under the Gold Control Act about the jewellery they sold. Neither had the jewellery shop reported it to the tax authorities.
The CBI officials pointed out in the charge sheet that Shree AmbikaJewellers "is a very small firm dealing in artificial diamonds, silver, stone jewellery, and had never dealt in the sale or purchase of gold jewellery or silver utensils".
Inspector Suman Kumar, who cracked the disproportionate assets case against Commissioner Puri, was awarded the CBI Gold Medal for Best Investigating officer for 2002 by the Prime Minister.
Picking up a clue from a bank account, Inspector Suman Kumar gathered information that Puri had deposited money in 170 accounts in 50 branches of 21 banks in five cities. He had also invested in immovable assets in Mumbai, Indore, Pune, Dehradun and Lucknow.