Fifteen more officials of the tax department, having allegations of corruption against them, were made to retire compulsorily by the Centre on Tuesday as part of its renewed tough stance on criminal misconduct.

The action comes a week after 12 senior income tax officers, including one of the ranks of the joint commissioner, were dismissed from service on charges of corruption and professional misconduct.

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In a series of tweets announcing the retirement, the Finance Ministry said,” All these 15 Officers shall be paid a sum equivalent to the amount of pay & allowances for a period of 3 months calculated at the same rate at which they were supposed to be withdrawing them (pay & allowances) immediately before their retirement.”

“In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (j) of rule 56 of the Fundamental Rules, the President of India has retired 15 Officers of Indian Revenue Service (C&CE) in public interest with immediate effect on completing 50 years of age,” the tweet further read.

The list is headed by Principal Commissioner Anup Srivastava, who has two cases against him filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, according to an NDTV report.

Another official is Atul Dikshit, who is also facing two CBI cases of fraud and disproportionate assets against him.

Apart from Anup Srivastava and Atul Dikshit, the names of the 13 other officers are: Sansar Chand, G Shree Harsha, Vinay Brij Singh, Ashok R Mahida, Virendrakr Agarwal, Amresh Jain, Nalin Kumar, SS Pabana, SS Bisht, Vinod Kumar Sanga, Raju Sekar, Ashok Kumar Aswal and Mohd Altaf.

The earlier list was topped by a Joint Commissioner rank officer against whom there are serious complaints of corruption and extortion from businessmen accused of helping self-styled godman Chandraswami.

It also included an IRS officer in the post of Commissioner (Appeal) in Noida, who was accused of sexual harassment by two lady IRS officers of Commissioner rank.

Another IRS officer who compulsory retired had acquired movable and immovable assets worth over Rs 3.17 crore in the name of self and his family members. These movable and immovable properties had allegedly been acquired by abusing his official position and by corrupt and illegal means.

A Commissioner Income Tax, who had a Disproportionate Assets case registered against him by the anti-corruption branch of the CBI, and was suspended from service in October 2009 pending criminal prosecution was also compulsorily retired by the government.

Another officer involved in cases of corruptions and extortion and who had passed many wrongs and malafide assessment orders which were later on reversed by the appellate authorities too was dismissed from the service.

An officer amassed disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 1.55 crore, which is 133.71 per cent of his known sources of income and using hawala channels for transferring the ill-gotten money too was compulsorily retired from the service.

Another officer of Commissioner rank, accused of demanding Rs 50 lakh bribe for giving relief to a businessman in a shell company matter, and abusing his official position as a public servant to acquire immovable/movable assets from his ill-gotten money amounting to Rs 3.13 crore was also compulsorily retired.

(With PTI inputs)