IRS officer Shankhesh Mehta gets a pat for chasing betel-nut smugglers in Surat

ON SUNDAY, IRS officer and deputy director of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) Shankhesh Mehta got a pat from his association — Indian Revenue Service Association. The applause that came in the micro-blogging site Twitter was for something spectacular -- the chasing of betel-nut smugglers in Surat and for a search that continued for 72 hours. So, who is Mehta, and what precisely was the appreciation for him? The IRS Association said…

“#DRI #Surat under Shankhesh Mehta IRS apprehended 2 trucks of Betelnut being smuggled and saved about Rs.2 Cr. of govt. revenue.”

And the chase took place during Holi, the festival of colours. The second Tweet from the IRS Association reads like this: “When you were playing Holi Deputy Director #DRI Surat, Shankhesh Mehta IRS was chasing smugglers of Betelnut. 72 hrs of search & he got them”.

Mehta did his schooling from Emmanuel Mission School, Pali before joining the higher institute, DKTE in 2001. 

In the service, he served as Assistant Commissioner in Customs and Central Excise department under the ministry of finance (2009 – 2014) before getting elevated to the position of deputy commissioner. 

In fact, the IRS Association now-a-days posts Tweets that encourage its own officers. For example, on the Monday last, it posted another Tweet for another IRS officer -- Pawan Kumar. The post said: “10 kgs Charas of Rs.12.5lakh seized by Customs at Motihari from a bus coming from Raxaul. Congratulations Deputy Commissioner Pawan Kumar IRS”.