HYDERABAD: Shooting the messenger, the top brass of Andhra Pradesh tax department have penalised an assistant commissioner, who did his best to prevent loss of revenue to the government, while sparing his senior who actually caused the loss.
The messenger, G. Prabhakar Murthy is due for retirement on June 30 and Piyush Kumar, chief commissioner of state tax, recommended to the government to recover Rs 50 lakh paid to Essar Steel, Visakhapatnam, as a penalty, from his retirement benefits and a cut in pension.
The chief commissioner, by implicating Murthy in this case, rescued additional commissioner S. Sekhar, whose inaction left the government with no option but to pay the penalty.
Interestingly, a crucial report submitted by the Visakhapatnam joint commissioner explaining in detail the events that led to the loss of revenue to the exchequer and holding Sekhar responsible for the loss was ignored by the chief commissioner for reasons best known to him.
“The inaction…