The Income Tax department on Thursday impounded the passport of the controversial arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari, allegedly holding a ‘benami’ property in london for Robert Vadra. Official sources said the travel document of Bhandari has been impounded by the investigating officer of the case under relevant sections of the Passport Act.
They said the action was taken by tax sleuths as they “apprehended” he may leave the country to impede investigation in the case. The department has also summoned Bhandari for a fresh round of questioning in the wake of further leads in the case, they said. The department is also mulling booking him under the stringent anti-blackmoney law.
The Enforcement Directorate also initiated action against Bhandari under prevention of money laundering and foreign exchange violations. The IT department, which conducted searches on his premises in April, is also awaiting replies to some of its queries in this case from overseas locations and a case under the new law could only be made post success in this endeavour, they said.
The IT department has already approached British Virgin Islands (BVI), the UK, UAE, Switzerland and a few other countries in order to take its probe forward and obtain further details about the transactions and investments made by Bhandari and some companies he purportedly owned and operated.
The tax sleuths claimed to have recovered certain emails that talk about renovation of a costly apartment in london in 2010 which was allegedly owned by Vadra, son-in-law of Congress President Sonia Gandhi. In a related development, Income Tax department has approached the Defence Ministry for certain documents pertaining to the Rs 2,800 crore deal for Pilatus trainer jets and some other deals in which Bhandari’s companies were allegedly involved.