Income Tax Dept another Poodle of the Centre

Strikeback begins
- Modi raided, Pawar fires
OUR BUREAU

April 15: Income-tax officials today swooped down on the headquarters of the Indian Premier League and an office as well as home of Lalit Modi, the first sign of strikeback by the Centre emerging on a day Sharad Pawar spoke out in support of the besieged IPL chief and Narendra Modi’s name crept into the controversy.

Lalit’s suite at the Four Seasons hotel in Parel has been sealed and his laptop seized. Till midnight, eight tax sleuths were questioning the IPL boss. Sources said CCTV footage had been collected from the places searched, apparently to identify visitors.

The sources added that the tax officials had been asked to despatch the information collated to Delhi before Friday morning. Junior foreign minister Shashi Tharoor, at the centre of the IPL storm, is scheduled to make a statement in Parliament tomorrow.

The tax action, variously described as “raid”, “search”, “source probe” (one without a formal complaint) and “inquiry”, is being seen as an attempt to send a strong message to Lalit and his supporters that the UPA will no longer take matters lying down. The income-tax department, which falls under the finance ministry held by the Congress, would not have stepped in without clearance from the party leadership.

The swoop rolled hours after the spokesperson for the Kochi IPL consortium said Lalit was targeting the group under pressure from Gujarat chief minister Modi.

The political plot thickened tonight with Pawar publicly lending support to Lalit. “There is nothing wrong in disclosing the names of the stakeholders to the public,” the Union agriculture minister and UPA ally told CNN-IBN, referring to Lalit’s tweet through which the IPL chief disclosed the shareholding pattern in the Kochi consortium.

Pawar sought to clear the air on Narendra Modi, too, saying the Gujarat chief minister had no role in the episode.

The former BCCI chief did back Tharoor but his strong defence of Lalit came amid charges that a cabinet minister from Maharashtra had tried to dissuade the consortium from bidding for Kochi.

In Parliament, the BJP gave a breather to Tharoor by focusing on the Dantewada massacre but it has threatened to rake up the IPL issue tomorrow. Tharoor met Sonia Gandhi today.

However, a little after 5.30pm, the scene of action shifted to Mumbai. Two cars swerved into the compound of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) adjacent to Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium and four men stepped out.

As the four — it later emerged they were income-tax officials — strode towards the BCCI building, one of them put a finger on his lips to order an advancing guard to be silent. “I thought they had come for some secret meeting with the bosses,” the guard said later.

The four men went to the 4th floor — the dedicated IPL floor in the BCCI office. “They did not go to the first floor as everybody does,” the guard said. The first floor houses the administration wing headed by Ratnakar Shetty.

Lalit was not in the office when the sleuths stepped in. Contacted, Lalit brushed away the visit as a “mere inquiry” and said he would be at the scene soon. But Lalit did not turn up even after an hour — he had been held back by more IT sleuths at his office in Mumbai’s Worli for questioning.

A Mumbai IT source disputed Lalit’s claim. “We are not conducting any enquiries — we are here to find proof and documents. Unfortunately, they seem to have been destroyed. He claimed they were all destroyed in a fire at his Mumbai house five months ago. We have raided his house as well and will conduct checks on one of his other offices at a hotel from where he runs his new businesses.”

The tax officials also visited the office of IMG, the IPL’s media partner. Another group of officials had earlier gone to the premises of Parinee Developers, which has a 26 per cent stake in the Kochi consortium.


I had earlier on more than three occasions called the CBI a pet poodle of the Central Government to harass their opponents.
I failed to mention another one - the INCOME-TAX DEPARTMENT.
Everything was cosy-cosy with Lalit Modi as long as he did not disturb the congress.
He crossed the line when he got Tharoor involved in the IPL muck which everybody believes is true.
Instead of taking action of Tharoor, it has decided to take action on the complainant.
This is usually what happens in any police station when a person goes to file a complaint. Instead of taking action on the complaint, the police harass the complainant and try to force him to withdraw the FIR. Of course, the stakes being higher here, the top people in the congress are involved, including Sonia Gandhi, for this action could not have been taken without her consent.
I, personally, do not favour Lalit Modi.
He had become too big for his boot and extremely arrogant. The protest raised by BCCI members who were told to leave the pavillion recently must have made many enemies for him.
But, the way the congress is using the Income Tax department to settle its scores is highly abominable.
The corrupt and bankrupt government takes makes money from us even before the year is up by way of advance tax. However, it takes years to refund excess tax collected from us. How can these income tax people find time to do their work when they are settling personal scores of the government.