NGO ‘Common Cause’ moved the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking a SIT to probe alleged payments of huge amounts by Sahara Group and Aditya Birla Group to politicians.
The application was filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan.
Have filed an application in the SC seeking thorough investigation into Sahara/Birla docs showing huge payments to politicos&its suppression https://t.co/4u6GNpYNgs
— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) November 15, 2016
In his complaint filed before the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), Bhushan said “Important evidence of corruption/bribery of important public functionaries [including Chief Ministers] by the business groups which was gathered in the raid on Sahara group by the Income Tax Department and in the raid on Birla group by the CBI, was not investigated and was brushed under the carpet.”
Documents seized from Sahara premises during an income tax raid on November 22 2014 allegedly revealed massive payments to several politicians, including some Chief Ministers and MPs, The document has alleged.
A set of three Excel sheets from the Sahara office, the third of which is signed by income tax officer Ankita Pandey, revealed that on September 23, 2013, a sum of “Rs. 10000000.00” is shown against the entry “CM Delhi”. On September 29, 2013, a sum of Rs. “50000000.00” is shown against the entry “CM MP (sh neeraj vashisht)”.
On October 1, 2013, a sum of Rs. “40000000.00” is shown against the entry “CM Chattisgarh (sh nandi ji)”. Finally, on October 30, 2013, a sum of Rs. “250000000” is shown against the entry “CM GUJRAT”, The Wire reported.
The CBI had conducted simultaneous raids on Aditya Birla Group’s offices in New Delhi, Mubai, Secunderabad and Bhubaneshwar on October 5 2013.
The simultaneous operation, in connection with coal block allocations to Aditya Birla Group’s Hindalco Industries, by the CBI led to the recovery of huge stashes of unaccounted money worth Rs 25 crore besides incriminating documents, The Hindu reported.
The documents seized from the raid revealed that “a payment of Rs. 7.08 crore was made during the period from 09.01.2012 to 02.02.2012 under the heading ‘Project-J-Environment & Forest’ ”.
“it is to be noted [that] during Ms Jayanti Natarajan’s tenure as Minister, Environment & Forest, as many as 13 projects of Aditya Birla Group companies were cleared between 08/11/2011 and 17.06.2013.”, Bhushan alleged.
A cryptic email obtained from the Aditya Birla Group executive president Shubhendu Amitabh’s personal laptop revealed an alleged payment of Rs 25 crores referred to an entity ‘Gujarat-CM’ , with Rs 12 crore already delivered.
On Tuesday, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted the picture of Gujarat CM -25 cr’ along with a direct allegation of corruption against Modi.
