Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati may just get the relief she has been looking for in the three-year-old CBI case of disproportionate assets (DA) against her.

For, a major chunk of the estimated Rs 28-crore undeclared income assessed by the CBI is in the name of her relatives and several of whom have recently approached the Income Tax Settlement Commission. Reason: the commission is empowered to grant them immunity against any legal action after they declare their assets and pay penalties.

Their application was just in time.

From tomorrow, as per an amendment to the I-T Act, the commission will no longer accept “search (raid) cases.” But all applications filed before the Commission before June 1 — which includes those of Mayawati’s relatives — “shall be deemed to have been allowed to be proceeded with” provided the additional tax is paid before July 31 and all pending cases are wrapped up by March 2008.

As many as 72 immovable assets or properties were listed in Mayawati’s DA cases by the CBI and 54 bank accounts were frozen. The value of the properties, mostly in and around Delhi and Noida, was computed at approximately Rs 7 crore and the amount frozen in bank accounts was Rs 7.36 crore. Besides, investigations by the CBI and the Income Tax Department revealed Rs 13.18 crore as deposits into bank accounts via 307 “donations” from 130 “donors.” These donors, curiously included, sweepers, hawkers and rickshaw-pullers. The immovable properties, the CBI claimed, had been bought in the name of Prabhu Dayal (Mayawati’s father), Raj Kumar (her brother), Tej Singh (her cousin), Nirmal Rani (her sister-in-law), Siddharth Kumar (her brother), Anand Kumar (her brother), Raj Veer Singh (her cousin) and Vichitra Lata (her sister in law).

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