Cash recovered linked to headquarter of major party: CBDT on MP raids

New Delhi, Apr 08: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said the searches in Madhya Pradesh by Delhi Directorate of Income Tax have detected racket of collection of unaccounted cash of about Rs 281 crore through various persons in different walks of life including business, politics and public service.

In a series of tweets, the Income Tax department said that meticulous records of collections and disbursement of cash had also been found in the form of hand-written diaries, computer files and excel sheets which had been found and seized. It said that these seizures corroborated its findings of a well organised racket being involved in the collection of cash. It also said that so far, unaccounted cash worth Rs 14.6 crore had also been found.

"Searches in Delhi (group of a close relative of the senior functionary) have further led to seizure incl. cash book recording unaccounted transactions of Rs 230cr, siphoning off money through bogus billing of more than Rs 242 cr & evidence of more than 80 companies in Tax havens," the I-T department said in a tweet.

In a fourth tweet, the I-T department said that it had also detected several unaccounted/benami properties at posh locations in Delhi.

"Instances of violations of Model Code of Conduct are being brought to the notice of ECI," the tweet said.

The tweets come a day after the residences and offices of close aides of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath and otehrs were raided by the income tax department.

The department had on Sunday launched pre-dawn raids at 52 locations of people and associates linked to Nath.

Sources had told PTI that there is a "strong possibility" of the cash recovered during the operation being used as an election inducement to fund political campaigns and bribe voters in the poll-bound state and in Delhi.

A preliminary report of the raids has also been shared by the department with the CBDT and the Election Commission in Delhi.

A cash van with large-sized trunks has been sent by the department at a location in Bhopal to seize and collect the cash found during the raids, they said.

Those searched included Nath's former Officer on Special Duty (OSD) Pravin Kakkar, former adviser Rajendra Miglani, Ashwani Sharma and executives linked to his brother-in-law's firm Moser Bayer and a company of his nephew Ratul Puri.

Nath had reacted on late Sunday to the development.

"The situation about the I-T raids is not clear yet. It would be appropriate to speak on this after the situation is clear. But the entire country knows how the constitutional institutions were used and against whom they were used during the past five years," he had said.

"These institutions were used to scare people. When they do not have anything to say on development and their work, they used this kind of tactics against their opponents," the CM's statement had said.

(with PTI inputs)