The Madhya Pradesh Government on Tuesday apprised the Election Commission (EC) of the action initiated against three IPS officers and others whose alleged role in the use of black money during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls came to the fore after the I-T Department raided former chief minister Kamal Nath’s close aides.
Chief Secretary Iqbal Singh Bains informed that the State Economic Offence Wing has registered a PE (preliminary enquiry) in the matter. He also sought two weeks’ time to apprise the Election Commission (EC) of further action in the matter. Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Rajesh Kumar Rajora was also present at the meeting. In December, the EC had decided to call top officials of the Madhya Pradesh government to apprise it of its orders to lodge “criminal action” against the three IPS officers and others.
The poll body also asked the Union home secretary to initiate “appropriate departmental action” against the IPS officers and asked the Madhya Pradesh chief secretary to undertake a “similar action” against a state police service officer. Election Commission sources identified the three IPS officers as Sushovan Banerjee, Sanjay Mane, V Madhu Kumar and state police service officer as Arun Mishra.
The EC had said it was recommending action after it “deliberated” upon a report sent to it by the CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes) intimating it about the Income Tax Department’s “search operations in Madhya Pradesh and its findings of extensive use of unaccounted cash during the 2019 general elections”.
An EC statement had said the CBDT report informed the commission about certain entities and individuals who were engaged in “unauthorised and unaccounted cash contributions to individuals on behalf of a certain political party, which was reported to be corroborated during searches against persons by the tax department”. While the EC did not name the party, it has been widely reported that the CBDT report referred to the Congress.
It said the EC has directed to forward the copy of the October 28 CBDT report “to the Chief Electoral Officer, Madhya Pradesh, to lodge criminal action before designated authority, which is the Madhya Pradesh economic offences wing, against the concerned for the violation as per extant electoral and other relevant laws”.
The tax department had conducted raids at 52 locations in Madhya Pradesh and Delhi in April last year and those searched included Nath’s former officer on special duty (OSD) Pravin Kakkar, adviser Rajendra Miglani, Ashwani Sharma, executives linked to his brother-in-law’s firm Moser Baer, a company of his nephew Ratul Puri and others.
The CBDT, on April 8 last year, had said in a statement that tax sleuths recovered Rs 14.6 crore “unaccounted” cash and seized diaries and computer files of suspect payments after the raids. It said the department detected a trail of Rs 20 crore suspect cash allegedly being moved to the “headquarter of a major political party in Delhi”.