CBI raids CM Virbhadra Singh’s home, Congress says vendetta
Already under the scanner of the Income Tax department, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh faced more trouble on Saturday as the CBI carried out searches at 13 places — including Singh’s residences in Shimla and Delhi apart from premises connected to his associates in Solan — after registering a disproportionate assets case against him.
The raids came on a day when Singh’s daughter, Minakshi Singh, was getting married. When the 30-member CBI team arrived at his private residence, Holly Lodge, at 7:55 am, Singh and his wife were leaving for the wedding ceremony at a local temple. According to sources, he told them, “my house is open to you for any kind of search or investigations. I will return soon to assist you.”
Singh and his family returned home at about 11 am, after the wedding ceremony. The raids continued for about 10 hours. Some CBI officials also visited Singh’s office at the Secretariat.
CBI sources said documents related to properties and investments, hard disks and pen drives had been recovered.
In Delhi, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad termed the action as “highly vindictive” and said it was part of “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hate agenda and political vendetta against Congress and its leaders”.
Pointing out that Singh’s daughter was getting married today, Azad said: “CBI officials were at his doorstep early in the morning when he and his family and guests came out to leave for the temple for the wedding… Is this democracy or dictatorship? Has Emergency been declared?”
The CBI has been carrying out an inquiry against Singh and his family members for allegedly amassing disproportionate wealth adding up to Rs 6.03 crore during his tenure as Union Minister of Steel and MSME under the UPA-II regime.
In June, the CBI filed a Preliminary Enquiry (PE), which was converted into an FIR under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act on September 23. The CBI case is broadly based on the irregularities found by the Income Tax department and later confirmed during the PE.
“The CBI has registered a case against then Union Minister, his wife, two private persons and unknown others on September 23, on the allegations of possession of disproportionate assets. This FIR was the outcome of a Preliminary Enquiry which revealed that then Union Minister, while serving during 2009-2012, had allegedly accumulated assets worth Rs 6.03 crore (approx) in his name and in the name of his family members which were found to be disproportionate to his known sources of income. The other persons named in the FIR had allegedly abetted then Union Minister in committing the offence,” said a CBI statement.
CBI sources said the PE was against Singh, his wife Pratibha Singh, son Vikramaditya Singh, daughter Aparajita Singh and LIC agent Anand Chauhan. The FIR, however, names only four people as accused apart from other “unknown persons”. The named individuals are Singh, Pratibha, Chauhan and apple trader Chunnilal Chauhan.
According to the CBI, Singh invested his unaccounted income in LIC policies in his and his family members’ names through Anand Chauhan, by showing it as agricultural income. For this, he allegedly created a memorandum of understanding, dated June 15, 2008, with Chauhan for maintenance of an apple orchard for a period of three years.
Chauhan allegedly deposited Rs 5 crore cash in his own bank account and debited the same through cheques for purchasing the LIC policies in the name of Singh and his family. Chunnilal’s services were allegedly used to move the money through a circuitous route, showing it as apple orchard income.
Later, Singh allegedly attempted to legitimise the funds as agricultural income by filing revised Income Tax returns in 2012. The agricultural income as claimed by him in his revised ITRs was not found to be tenable, said a CBI spokesperson.
Singh is facing Income Tax investigations into his revised I-T returns for three years (2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12) when his revised income showed a huge jump — from Rs 7.34 lakh, Rs 15 lakh and Rs 25 lakh respectvely to Rs 2.21 cr, Rs 2.80 cr and Rs 1.55 cr respectively. Singh had attributed this to higher sales from his apple orchards.
Among the locations raided today are a flat belonging to Pratibha Singh in Greater Kailash in Delhi, Singh’s official residence at Jantar Mantar Road, Delhi, his Holly Lodge residence and Padma Palace in Shimla, Maple Distributions farmhouse near Mandi village. Other locations include Anand Chauhan’s residence at Indira Nagar in Shimla, and various premises belonging to Chunnilal Chauhan in Parwanoo, Solan.
The premises of another associate of Virbhadra Singh, Vakkamalu Chandrashekhar, were also searched in East of Kailash, Lajpat Nagar and Mehrauli in Delhi. The agency also raided the premises linked to one Ramprakash Bhatia in Delhi.
Read full article: Indian Express
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