Income Tax Inspector: CBI arrest in Rs 15 lakh bribe case

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested an Income Tax Inspector posted at Scindia House in Mumbai for allegedly accepting Rs 15 lakh to secure the closure of a benami property matter, the agency said. The CBI said it caught the inspector accepting the money during a trap on 27 October 2026.

The Free Press Journal identified the arrested inspector as Subhash Kumar Yadav. According to the CBI, he was posted in the Investigation Wing of the Income Tax Department, while the complainant’s property matter was pending with the department’s Benami Prohibition Unit.

A Mumbai court remanded the inspector to two days of police custody, until 30 October 2026, the CBI said. The Free Press Journal reported that he was produced before the court on 28 October 2026. The custody decision concerns the investigation and does not establish guilt.

The CBI registered the bribery case on 27 October 2026 against the inspector and unidentified others following a complaint from a Mumbai-based person. The agency’s statement does not name those other individuals or specify their alleged roles.

Alleged demand to close the property matter

According to the CBI, the complainant alleged that the inspector initially demanded Rs 20 lakh to get the pending property matter closed. The agency said the inspector subsequently agreed to accept Rs 15 lakh after negotiations.

The alleged payment was therefore linked to a promised outcome in an Income Tax Department proceeding. The CBI’s statement does not say that the proceeding was actually closed or that the inspector had the authority to close it.

The Times of India, in its report dated 28 October 2026, gave a fuller account of the complainant’s dealings with the department. It reported that the complainant had received an income-tax notice in February and attended the Scindia House office, where he submitted an explanation to a senior officer in the presence of Yadav and another inspector.

According to that report, the inspectors subsequently called the complainant repeatedly and asked him to return to Scindia House for further discussions. After meeting him there, the two allegedly took him to a nearby roadside tea stall and demanded a bribe.

The Times of India reported that the complainant approached the CBI because he was unwilling to pay. These details form part of the reported allegations; they are not findings against either inspector.

The CBI said it then arranged the trap in which the accused allegedly accepted the negotiated amount. Its statement records one arrest and does not announce the arrest of the other inspector mentioned in The Times of India’s account.

Searches and grounds for custody

The CBI said searches at the accused’s premises yielded Rs 11 lakh in cash and documents it described as incriminating. That cash was reported as a search recovery, separately from the alleged Rs 15 lakh bribe. The statement does not explain its source or establish that it was connected to the alleged payment.

The Times of India reported that investigators also seized electronic devices for examination. According to the newspaper, the CBI told the remand court that Yadav had not cooperated with investigators and had given evasive replies about the bribe money and other people allegedly involved. Those were the agency’s submissions to the court, not independently established findings.

The newspaper also reported that Yadav had been transferred from Benami Prohibition Unit-I in June 2026 and was working in the Investigation Wing. It said the CBI was examining the nature of his work and his access to confidential information held by the benami unit.

That reported inquiry concerns his connection to the unit handling the complainant’s matter. It does not, by itself, establish that he accessed or misused confidential information.

According to The Times of India’s account of the custody proceedings, the court recorded that the CBI sought time to investigate the involvement of other accused persons, examine the seized digital devices and collect a specimen voice sample – a recording of the accused’s voice for comparison. The report does not identify the recording against which that sample would be compared.

The original remand order was not available for this report; the account of the court’s stated reasons comes from The Times of India. Neither the CBI statement nor the cited reports include Yadav’s response to the allegations or an Income Tax Department response.

Hindustan Times reported that investigators were examining whether the arrested inspector had accomplices. The identity and alleged role of any additional participant remain unresolved in the CBI’s published account.