Mumbai: A special CBI court on Thursday convicted former commissioner of income tax (appeal) Daya Shankar Singh and sentenced him to four years of imprisonment in a 2011 bribery case. He has been convicted for accepting bribe from a company to reduce tax liability, and over corruption charges in a second case.

Special public prosecutor Kavita Patil examined 12 witnesses to prove the charge that accused Daya Shankar Singh in 2011 had demanded Rs 2 lakh from a company to reduce the income tax liabilities. On Thursday, judge M. G. Deshpande held Singh guilty under the relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

According to advocate Patil the judge also imposed a fine of  rs 2,50,000 on Singh. The prosecution said that one Haresh Bhawnani had filed an appeal with commissioner of Income Tax (Appeal) against an assessment order for additional tax liability of over Rs 1 crore for the year 2008-09.

Mr Bhawnani challenged this assessment before Mr Singh who was the appellate authority at that time. Initially, Mr Singh demanded Rs 25 lakh from the complainant to reduce his tax liability from more than Rs 1 crore to Rs 2.5 lakh. Later, he reduced the bribe to Rs 2 lakh and also threatened of not confirming the assessment.

Mr Bhawnani was not willing to pay the bribe and hence he approached the anti-corruption bureau (ACB) unit of the CBI on August 23, 2011.