The income tax raids on eight individuals, including two IAS officers, Brijendra Yadav and Neel Ratan, and one photo-journalist, yesterday, was conducted after the state government refused to move in this direction and sat over the advice of the Centre.
The central government had sent a list of twelve officials to Governor Romesh Bhandari for necessary action on corruption charges, but when the state did not move, the Centre intervened through the income tax department.
The moving spirit behind these raids is none other then central agriculture minister Chaturanan Misra, who was here two weeks back and had assured the CPI state unit that necessary action would be taken. The list was prepared by the state unit and the members of the IAS association, sources point out. But the state government has been consistently refusing to take action against the officials and was not prepared to allow the CBI to investigate.
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Therefore, a novel method of IT raids was thought of. The Income Tax department does not require any permission from anybody and neither does it need to inform the state government. The first step in the operation has been accomplished.
The list prepared contains the names of 115 persons, which includes IAS, IPS, engineers of the irrigation department and others. When the other raids would take place is anybodys guess.
But Chaturanan Misra has managed to do what many had wanted to happen.
The officials raided are of two kinds. First are those who are involved with the food department, Brijendra Sahai, principal secretary, food, and the other, PN Misra, chairman, Mandi Parishad. The other set relates to Ghaziabad land development programmes.
BP Gupta, DG, income tax investigation, told journalists that the raids were conducted on eight persons, and on forty premises, in 12 cities, including Delhi.
He said that the raids were not yet complete. The lockers, over 40, are yet to be opened.
The raids have revealed that there were excess stocks than reported in some of the rice mills. Cash to the tune of Rs 20-22 lakhs and almost a similar amount of fixed deposit receipts have been traced.
Share certificates worth a large amount have been found. There are some deeds of agreement to sell but as yet it is not known whether these have been executed.
In all, 300 persons were deployed, besides the local police. No information was given to the state government officials.
The raids have been welcomed by bureaucrats and others. They point out that a position had been reached where honest and hardworking officers had started having doubts, since they could see that others were making money and nothing was happening to them. Many of them had started wavering. These officers will now firm themselves and will not fall into the trap.
In general this is the outcome of the crusade launched by the IAS Association to weed out the corrupt from the service.