Thane court frees CGST officers hours after a Rs 40 lakh CBI trap

A special court in Thane on Friday released three men the CBI had arrested overnight in a Central GST bribery case, holding that the arrests themselves were not legal.

The accused are Vinay Kumar Kantheti, additional commissioner of CGST Raigad and a 2009-batch Indian Revenue Service officer; Rakesh Kumar Sinha, a CGST superintendent in the same commissionerate; and Narinder Rajput, a private person the agency describes as the collector. Each was freed on a personal bond of Rs 15,000. The court refused custodial interrogation. The CBI said it would challenge the order.

The agency registered the first information on 26 August against Sinha. The complaint said he had asked for Rs 1.5 crore to settle a GST and royalty file for a stone-quarrying firm. The figure later came down to Rs 40 lakh. CBI says Kantheti and Sinha routed the cash through Rajput and told the company man where to pay.

A trap was laid on Thursday. Rajput was caught, the agency says, while taking the Rs 40 lakh. Kantheti and Sinha were arrested after that, from their offices. The three detentions ran from about 7:30 p.m. Thursday to 5:15 a.m. Friday. CBI told the court that both officers acknowledged the acceptance of the money.

Searches followed. The agency reported Rs 43 lakh more in cash and jewellery valued near Rs 90 lakh. Most of that recovery, CBI sources said, came from premises linked to Sinha.

The judge's problem was procedure, not the notes on the table. The order said the grounds of arrest and the communication to relatives were not established in the way the law requires. Because the bribe cash and the phones had already been seized, the court found no satisfactory reason to keep the three in custody for more questions.

That split will now move to a higher court. The CBI still has the trap money, the extra cash, the jewellery and the recorded acknowledgements it says the two officers gave. The accused walk free on bond while that file is written up as a chargesheet. An illegal-arrest finding does not wipe the alleged demand. It does mean anything said in custody after the flawed arrest will be fought over.

Raigad's stone-quarry belt sits inside a thick GST and royalty web. Royalty on mined stone and tax on the finished sale are separate levers. A single file that mixes both is the kind of place where a negotiated figure of Rs 40 lakh can appear. The court's Friday order does not decide whether that figure was demanded. It decides only that the way the three men were taken off the street did not meet the statute.

CBI now has to repair the arrest paper or live with a trial that starts from a bail order branding the first step unlawful. That is the immediate cost of the night's work.