While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given a clean chit to the coal block allocation to Aditya Birla Group company Hindalco, the Income Tax Department has served a notice on the company to explain the seizure of unaccounted cash to the tune of Rs 25 crore by the CBI during raids conducted at its offices.
The I-T Department has intimated the CBI of the action, an agency source said. The sources said Hindalco has been asked to furnish the source of the unaccounted cash recovered from its office on Parliament Street. According to the I-T rules, the department can initiate penalty proceedings if it is not satisfied with the explanations furnished by Hindalco. The I-T department is vested with quasi-judicial authority with regard to recovery of tax.
Apart from the unaccounted cash, the CBI had on October 15 also seized retail invoice of Rs 92 lakh for purchase of gold coins, loose cash of Rs 24 lakh and Kisan Vikas Patras worth lakhs of rupees. Meanwhile, the PMO on Friday handed over to the CBI all the files and documents related to the controversial allocation of coal block to Hindalco in Odisha. “We have received all the files related to the allocation from the PMO today,” a CBI spokesperson said.
The PMO also assured the agency that it is ready to provide any further information, if required, in due course. The agency had written to the PMO early this week seeking all the files relevant to the allocation of coal blocks in Odisha to Hindalco in 2005.
last week, the PMO had publicly defended its decision to allow Hindalco a share in a coal block in 2005, when Manmohan Singh was holding charge as Coal Minister. “The Prime Minister is satisfied that the final decision taken in this regard was entirely appropriate and is based on the merits of the case placed before him,” a PMO statement had said.
Sources in the CBI said that the agency will scrutinise the documents received from PMO before deciding on the future course of action. “First of all, we want to know which PMO officials handled the Hindalco case. We will question them if we find any discrepancy. The matter is under investigation and that's why we need to have a look at all the relevant files before arriving to any conclusion,” the CBI official said.
He hinted that the agency might seek clarification from the Prime Minister also as he held the charge of the Coal Ministry during the period of allocation to Hindalco.