The Tivoli Garden Resort tax-evasion case may prove to be the undoing of a Delhi Cabinet minister with Lokayukta Justice M M Sarin taking cognizance of a report that the minister was pressuring VAT Commissioner Jalaj Shrivastava to recall his enforcement officials who reached the resort for a surprise tax survey. The Lokayukta has summoned Shrivastava to name the Cabinet minister,who he claims phoned him to recall enforcement officials this February. On June 22,Shrivastava had written a note to the Finance Minister,Finance Secretary,Chief Secretary and the Chief Ministers Office,alleging that a Delhi minister had phoned him while a tax survey was on at the Tivoli Garden Resort Hotel at Chattarpur in South Delhi. The minister allegedly asked him to recall an enforcement team from an active survey that was on at the resort,Shrivastava had claimed. A senior official at the Lokayuktas office said Shrivastava will be asked to clear the air over his remarks. Shrivastava had also claimed he subsequently received calls from an MP,a councillor and fellow bureaucrats to take the heat off resort management. He has been asked to produce the report he submitted to higher authorities and also name the minister and the councillor who called him, said the official. Based on a raid and subsequent inquiry in February,tax officials project Tivoli Garden operators could have collectively under-reported their gross turnover between March 2006 and November 2009 by up to Rs 255.36 crore. As a result Delhis tax department lost nearly Rs 31.92 crore,as also a tax evasion penalty of a similar amount as per norms.
