With the income and assets of 11 Rajya Sabha and 26 lok Sabha MPs showing a phenomenal jump, in some cases even more than 800 per cent, the Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to reveal what action was taken by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) against the high profile elected representatives after this list was submitted to the agency by a NGO way back in June 2015.
Since the list included party bigwigs, several Ministers in the Central Cabinet and former Ministers, the Court gave CBDT the choice to submit action taken information to Court by September 12 either by way of affidavit or in sealed cover. The Court was hearing a petition by NGO lok Prahari seeking transparency in disclosure of source of income of assets of candidates, their family and dependents in the nomination form.
The list of Rajya Sabha MPs whose income showed a phenomenal rise in five years period included Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut (841 per cent increase), BSP's Satish Chandra Mishra (698 per cent), Congress' Jairam Ramesh (659 per cent), Congress' Ambika Soni (501 per cent), BJP's Piyush Vedprakash Goel (214 per cent), BJP's Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi (154 per cent), Samajwadi Party's Amar Singh (138 per cent) and RJD's Ram Jethmalani (119 per cent) among others.
The increase in assets, income was measured by comparing their affidavit submitted in 2016 with the assets declared in the previous election.
The lok Sabha list of reelected MPs whose income and assets between 2009 and 2014 grew by over 500 per cent included Congress chief Sonia Gandhi (573 per cent), BJP's DV Sadanand Gowda (588 per cent), BJP's Arjun Ram Meghwal (608 per cent), SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav (613 per cent), BJP's Varun Gandhi (625 per cent), BJP's Shatrughan Sinha (778 per cent), AIADMK's P Venugopal (1281 per cent), Trinamool Congress' Sisir Kumar Adhikari (1700 per cent), Muslim league's ET Mohammad Basheer (2081 per cent) and BJP's Kamlesh Paswan (5649 per cent) among others.
CBDT received this list from lok Prahari on June 30, 2015. The CBDT in an earlier affidavit revealed that the list was forwarded for action to the Director General Income-Tax (Investigation). The Bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer found the affidavit vague and sought details of action taken against persons named in the list.