Mumbai, August 28, 2026: The special CBI court on Friday released three officials arrested by CBI on Thursday night, holding that their arrest was illegal. The CBI had on Thursday arrested an IRS officer serving as Additional Commissioner of Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) in Raigad district of Maharashtra, along with a Superintendent of CGST, Raigad, and a private person, in a bribery case.
The three accused who were arrested are Vinay Kumar Kantheti, Additional Commissioner of GST, (IRS-2009), Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs, Raigad district; Rakesh Kumar Sinha, Superintendent of GST, Raigad; and Narinder Rajput (Private Person).
They were produced before the special CBI court, where the prosecution asked for their custody for five days for interrogation. The plea was opposed by the defence lawyers, Rahul Agrawal, Jasmin Purani and Harsh P. Shah, contending that the officers did not comply with the procedure of arrest. It was argued that the grounds of arrest were not explained and neither was their relative informed about the arrest.
Court Finds Arrest Procedure Flawed
The special court, hearing this, noted that, “there is an arrest memo in case diary which is in prescribed form and it is been filled in typography. This indicates that the official have themselves prepared the arrest memo without considering whether the grounds and reason of arrest were understood accused person or not. Their relatives were not informed in writing.”
The court further noted that the case diary was presented by the officer but the same was not in accordance with the provision as prescribed in law. Besides, the court also noted that the place of arrest seems to be in office of CBI or it was one and the same place at Panvel. With this the court said the arrest of all accused is not legal.
Bail Granted To Three Accused
While granting them bail, the court said, “already the bribe money has seized. In personal search of all accused the mobiles are recovered. There are no satisfactory reasons for any further custodial interrogation.” The officers have been, however, asked to cooperate with the investigation.
The CBI registered a case on Wednesday against the accused Superintendent of CGST on the allegations that he had demanded an undue advantage of Rs 1.50 crore for settling the GST/royalty matter relating to the stone-quarrying firm of the complainant. After negotiation, the demand was subsequently reduced to Rs 40 lakh.
The officer arranged for collection of the bribe amount through a private person and accordingly directed the complainant. The CBI laid a trap and caught the accused private person red-handed while accepting an undue advantage of Rs 40 lakh.
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Cash And Jewellery Recovered
The acceptance of the bribe amount was subsequently acknowledged by the accused Superintendent of CGST as well as the accused Additional Commissioner of CGST.
Further, the agency claimed that the searches conducted at the premises of the accused persons resulted in the further recovery of cash amounting to Rs 43 lakh and jewellery worth approximately Rs 90 lakh.
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