I-T dept may grill top MP officials, Kamal Nath's relatives
The sources also added that the tax department had found that huge amounts of money, sourced illegally from government departments in the state.
New Delhi: The I-T department will soon summon top officials of the Madhya Pradesh government, politicians and relatives of chief minister Kamal Nath as part of its probe into an alleged “widespread and well-organised” hawala racket of about Rs 281 crore unearthed during the Lok Sabha polls, sources said on Tuesday.
Officials said the income-tax (I-T) department will also issue notices for appearance to some of Mr Nath’s close aides based in state capital Bhopal and his constituency, Chhindwara, as part of its action to widen the probe.
As the cash and the hawala deals had “clear links” to the poll process, according to sources, the EC will issue notices to certain Congress candidates who contested the recent parliamentary polls from various seats in the state.
Their names figured in an I-T appraisal report prepared by the department after raids were conducted at 52 locations in the state and in Delhi last month.
The report had already been submitted to the EC and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the sources said. Mr Nath and his aides had earlier termed the I-T action against them as “malicious”.
“All these fake statements of theirs (I-T department)...They themselves make statements. They themselves give it to the press. So, if they are playing politics, well... There is no end to politics,” the chief minister said. The probe in the matter had to be widened and people whose role in the case had been detected had to be confronted with the collected evidence, and their statements had to be recorded, the sources said.
Senior bureaucrats of at least half-a-dozen government departments of the state, Congress politicians, heads of some state government-appointed federations, promoters of business groups, family members and business partners of Nath and his businessman brother-in-law and his aides, including former OSDs Pravin Kakkar and R.K. Miglani, were expected to be called for questioning, they added. This could not be done till now as a number of them said they were busy with poll-related works, the sources said. The sources also added that the tax department had found that huge amounts of money, sourced illegally from government departments in the state.