This story is based on a 254-page confidential dossier prepared by the Income Tax Department into a system of alleged kickbacks in tenders for various schemes of the Uttar Pradesh government. According to the report, investigators documented cash transfers, WhatsApp exchanges about expensive gifts, property trails through a suspected shell firm, and a Rs 21 crore investment made in a company earlier run by former top bureaucrat Navneet Sehgal’s son. The I-T officer who received approval to refer this matter to the UP government had subsequently led Operation Panther against gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, a case that made national headlines. This one did not. No action is publicly known, and Sehgal moved on to a prime post-retirement appointment in the Modi government.
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On March 4, 2022, income tax officials stopped a Toyota vehicle on a Lucknow road. Inside were three men and Rs 41 lakh in cash.
What looked like an ordinary interception exposed a deeper trail – an entrenched system of kickbacks in government tenders and grants in Uttar Pradesh. A confidential report by the Directorate of Income Tax Investigation (UP and Uttarakhand) later detailed how at least Rs 112 crore of public money was allegedly siphoned through a web of bureaucrats, contractors, and shell companies.
According to the report, the biggest share of kickbacks allegedly went to Navneet Kumar Sehgal, a 1988-batch IAS officer who held several powerful posts during the period under investigation. More than a year after the income tax investigation, he was granted a significant central posting as Prasar Bharati chief in Delhi. A job he recently quit mid-tenure.
Over three financial years, from 2019-20 to 2021-22, Sehgal allegedly received at least Rs 24 crore in kickbacks. This was a period that coincided with his senior roles. These include stints as Principal Secretary and later Additional Chief Secretary handling the MSME and khadi departments, as well as chairman of the Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (IED) and the UP Industrial Consultants Ltd (UPICON).