‘Extortion, petty bureaucracy’: Mohandas Pai urges FM Sitharaman to probe all bribery complaints against customs dept

Amid a growing call to conduct a full and transparent investigation into complaints made by several businesses and business-owners against the customs department, Mohandas Pai, Chairman of Aarin Capital and former CFO of Infosys, has requested Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to look into not just the Wintrack vs Chennai Customs case but also into other complaints.

Pai urged FM Sitharaman and the Finance Ministry to consider a “full and transparent investigation into routine experiences of people with the Customs department”. He tagged Sitharaman and the ministry on a tweet by urbanist and teacher, Ashwin Mahesh, who said that a simple probe into Wintrack’s complaints against bribery and Chennai Customs’ subsequent response denying it, isn’t enough.  

“The government has ordered a 'fair and transparent' probe into the row between the Customs and the cargo firm that publicly complained of corruption and decided to end its operations in India. This is NOT ENOUGH. What is needed is a 'full and transparent' investigation into routine experiences of people with the Customs department. The number of people complaining about their experiences is high, and full of accounts of extortion and petty bureaucracy. That's not going to be tackled by investigating one issue by one complainant,” said Mahesh. 

Pai and Mahesh are not the only ones asking for a thorough evaluation of customs and its rules. Another user suggested the mandatory usage of body cameras by all customs, police and similar officers during duty hours. “Every office and police station should be under full camera coverage. I’ve personally seen cases where Delhi Police take people to a crowded roundabout just to collect bribes,” said a user on X, who also said all CAs and CSs’ accounts should be monitored since they are the biggest mediators for such transactions. 

This comes as a controversy erupted after Tamil Nadu-based importer, Wintrack, said it will close its import-export business in India because the customs department has been harassing them following a series of complaints regarding bribery, which has essentially crippled their business. 

Chennai Customs called the allegations baseless, and said Wintrack founder Prawin Ganeshan has an established pattern of making unsubstantiated allegations, to which he said he paid Rs 2.10 lakh in bribery and has all the proofs.