HC seeks IT assessment report of Jain-Hawala scam accused

HC seeks IT assessment report of Jain-Hawala scam accused
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, MARCH 21: Delhi High Court today directed the Income Tax department to furnish details on assessment of income of 17 politicians and bureaucrats, chargesheeted by CBI in the Jain-Hawala scam case and tax recoveries from them.

"A further status report with regard to the stage of assessment and recoveries" from these persons be filed by April 25," a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Arijit Passayat and Justice D K Jain said.

The direction was issued by the court after perusing a fresh status report filed by the income Tax (IT) department giving details about the latest position of the probe against the politicians and bureaucrats including Union Home Minister L K Advani, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav.

Expressing concern over the slow progress in the case, the Bench also directed that appraisal reports prepared by the IT department against each person should be filed before it on the next date of hearing.

Solicitor General Harish Salve reading from fresh status report, filed in sealed cover, said the assessment in some cases had been completed, in some were at final stage and some of them had filed appeals before Appellate Tribunal, while some of the persons had yet to reply to show cause notices issued by the Department.

The court was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking expeditious probe into the alleged tax evasion by the persons against whom IT Department had prepared two reports for acquiring income disproportionate to their known sources of income during 1989-91. Besides Advani, Sinha and Yadav, IT department had been probing the matter against former Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal, his son Ranjit Singh and grandson Pradeep Singh, Congress leaders Arjun Singh, N D Tiwari, Buta Singh, K Natwar Singh, R K Dhawan and S Krishna Kumar.

The others against whom the investigations were on, are former Union Minister Ajit Panja and Arif Mohammed Khan and former bureaucrats H K Khan, Prakash Bhatia and Basan Ravidhankne.

The probe againt them was being conducted in pursuant totwo reports prepared by IT Department officials D C Agarwal and Y K Batra, which alleged that these persons had unaccounted income during the period 1989-91.

All these politicians and bureaucrats were discharged bythe court in the Jain-Hawala scam cases, registered by CBI on the ground that the prosecution could not produce sufficient evidence againt them to support allegations of their receiving money from Jain brothers, as was mentioned in their diaries.

The PIL filed by a local scribe, O P Tapas had soughtfollow up actions on the report prepared by Agarwal and Batra and recovery of taxes from them.

IT Department's Additional Director (Investigation) B DSinha in an affidavit filed earlier, had admitted that the two officials had investigated the matter against 18 persons, who were chargesheeted by CBI in Jain-Hawala scam case.

He stated that separate appriasal reports against eachof them were forwarded to the concerned assessing officials.

The affidavit said no investigation was conducted againstBabu Ram whose name also figured in the list submitted by the petitioner along with the PIL.