Income tax raids on Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd (MEIL Group) in 2019 revealed documents of huge amounts of cash delivered by the company and its subsidiary to the Congress, the I-T department has revealed before the Delhi High Court. A 45-page HC judgement on Friday listed these purported payments delivered at “Akbar Road”.
MEIL has emerged as the biggest donor to the BJP through electoral bonds, inviting potshots from the opposition. But the latest revelation by the income tax department could turn the issue on its head. “The search documents recovered from the MEIL Group appear to indicate unaccounted transfers to the political party (Congress) during Assessment Year‘s 2017-18 to 2020-21,” the High Court order has noted. These transfers are part of the Rs 520 crore that the HC has termed to be what allegedly escaped assessment, as per the I-T department.
MEIL and its subsidiary WUPPTCL were raided by the I-T department in 2019. The HC order has recorded that the department seized a handwritten diary of a man named PV Sunil, which had documented payments to the tune of Rs 25.85 crore at “Akbar Road” in various tranches between February 28, 2019, and October 1, 2019. The payments ranged between Rs 65 lakh on April 5, 2019, to Rs 6.4 crore on April 20. “Statement dated 11.10.2019 of PV Sunil accepting he had paid amounts at 24, Akbar Road,” says the list of evidence furnished by the department. 24, Akbar Road is the AICC office in Delhi.
The I-T department list of evidence further mentions Rs 10.5 crore paid at Akbar Road by MEIL subsidiary WUPPTCL in various tranches between August 22, 2016, and November 8, 2017. The department has claimed that the cash paid by MEIL and WUPPTCL pertains to the period of the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 and the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections of 2018.
Another company raided by the income tax department in 2019, which threw up evidence of cash transactions of the Congress, was the Kakkar-Miglani Group. “The petitioner (Congress) has woefully failed to establish that the material which forms the bedrock for recordal of satisfaction (by IT Department) is not founded on any data, material evidence or documentation pertaining to AYs‘ 2014-15, 2015-16 and 2016-17,” the High Court has said.
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