After days of inconvenience to common man because of the district administration’s drive against money in transit after the Model Code of Conduct came into effect, respective district administrations claimed to have returned the money to the legitimate owners. However, the quantum of money that has been returned so far still remains unanswered.
After the Model Code of Conduct came into effect due to General Election more than `1.80-crore was seized by the team, constituted at the directive of the Election Commission to check misuse of money power during elections. The Income Tax (IT) department confided about return of money in most of the cases after ascertaining the end use of the money confiscated during drive. According to the IT department, barring three cases accounting for `39-lakh the department has allowed district administrations to handover money to its owner.
“In 90 per cent of cases the money might have been returned (to its legitimate owners),” confided Nodal Officer-cum-Additional Director of IT, Sandeep Raj. Maximum amount was seized in Hazaribagh where the administration claims to have returned around `40-lakh to the concerned person after getting green signal from the officials of IT department whereas in other case the administration has registered cases. “The person who was carrying the money was called by IT department and we returned the money after getting clearance from the department,”said Deputy Commissioner Hazaribagh, Sunil Kumar.
However, Hazaribagh may be an aberration as other district administrations could not furnish details to corroborate the claim made by the IT department. The IT department could not conduct inquiry into the incident of Ramgarh where the police registered an FIR even before informing the department about the confiscation. The Ramgarh police had recovered 18-kg silver and more than `36-lakh during search operations. “The money now belongs to the court as we have registered FIR on the matter,” said DC Ramgarh, Abu Imran.
Interestingly, the IT department came clean about deducting 30 per cent towards tax on the amount seized before returning it to right persons. The department rubbished charges of forcing a common man to shell out taxes on the amount confiscated. “We are returning all the money. Those who have not paid taxes on the amount that was confiscated during search are willingly submitting taxes,” maintained Raj. Impounding of money had led to a RTI request seeking the Election Commission to clarify its stand vis-à-vis rules and a PIl was filed in Jharkhand High Court regarding seizure of money carried by people while the Model Code of Conduct is in force. Even as the commission clarified its stand on the seizure of money (`50,000 and above) from common men and seizure of money from businessman (`10 lakh and above) the Jharkhand High Court asked the EC and Government of India to file a counter affidavit on seizure of money during polls.