Owing To Right Links, CA Obtains VIP Treatment In Prison

Though the priosn in the city has quite a line-up of VIP convicts – an ex deputy commissioner, SSP, ex MLA and powerful Akali heads, besides a top collector of internal revenue – the one whose special care overshadows others’ is Ashwani Gupta, a CA detained by the CBI on April 3 from the city of Jalandhar for allegedly being the middleman in a bribery deal.

Ashwani has served on the board of SBoP, where he headed the audit group, is an associate of the steel consumers’ council of the union administration, and is a special guest to the direct taxes group of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).

However, perhaps most especially, the Doaba-based CA, in judicial detention since April 8, is a financial adviser to 6 current and ex ministers of Punjab, two of whom are learnt to have called the jail superintendent to make sure he receives VIP treatment.

Hence, there’s no limit of visitants or outdoor food, he obtains mineral water, and the deputy superintendent visits him on a daily basis, as per a upper-level officer who provided the data on the condition of namelessness.

Ironically, even IT DC TK Bhattacharya, who was detained together with Gupta at Jalandhar for taking a bribe of Rs. 6 lakh from a businessman to hush up a tax nonpayment case, only has his family members visiting him. At the time of detaining Gupta and the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer Bhattacharya from Gupta’s residence, the police had detected Rs. 67.5 lakh there.

So sound is Gupta’s closeness to the political circle, which aides of a cabinet head reportedly visited the prison to meet him and monitor the VIP facilities.

Others who have met him – without making an entry in the file – comprise an additional director general of police (ADGP)-level officer placed at the HQ in Chandigarh, 2 inspectors-general, several businessmen and political leaders.

“He is the CA of almost all big industrial houses in Doaba in which politicians have invested their money directly or indirectly. They must be worried what he could have told the CBI,” remarked a jail officer, who stated that he was surprised how he gets even better cure and more visitors than ex Patiala DC and IAS officer Vikas Garg, charged in a Rs. 200-crore land scandal, and ex MLA and Akali head Mangat Rai Bansal, who was recently handed 7-year jail in a fraud case.