Mangaluru : South Police station in Mangaluru  have filed FIR against 19 persons including 13 officers from Commercial Tax department, two staff of the department and four individuals allegedly on charges of transporting seized goods worth Rs 53.86 lakh.

The goods were seized for failing to pay commercial tax. Commercial Tax Department Assistant Commissioner B C Fernandes filed a private complaint with Senior Civil and Judicial Magistrate, on seizure of goods from Chandan Decorators Pvt Ltd and transporting it without knowldge. Based on the complaint, the court directed the police to probe into the incident. Accordingly, FIR was filed on July 10.

The FIR has named Commercial Tax Deputy Commissioners Arif Ali, Dayanand Poojari, Patalappa, N S Nagaswamy, Chandrappa M, Assistant Commissioners N Rangaswamy, Somashekaraiah A M, Mohan Manya, Prabhakar B N, Vidyashankar N, Girish Shettigar, Nagaraj D M, second division assistants Shantha Kumari, Devadas K, private indidiviuals Sathish Nayak, Sandhya Nayak, Shashikala Nayak, and Chandan Decorators owner Sharashchandra, as accused.

According to the complaint, Chandan Decorators had not paid commercial tax of Rs 17.26 lakh from 1996-97 to 1998-99. The officials from commercial tax had issued a notice in 2002, to pay the commercial tax pending. In 2003, the officials had seized goods worth Rs 53.83 lakh and locked the firm and kept the seized goods in the same shop. However, when the commercial tax officials on June 8, 2009 visited the spot for spot verification, they could not find the seized goods. Instead of Chandan Decorators Pvt Ltd, Nisarga, another firm, was functioning in the place, said complaint from Fernandes. The complainant said the accused have cheated the government to the tune of Rs 53.83 lakh.