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A day after a sting operation showed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) members accept cash donations without proper receipts, the party courted another controversy on Friday. Revenue officers have taken a strong objection to AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal's statement that he could have made a lot of money as an income tax official if he wanted to.
In a letter to Kejriwal on Friday, the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) Association said the former's statement that an ordinary income tax inspector makes Rs 1 crore a year and that he could also have earned crores of rupees as income-tax commissioner had he not resigned to embrace social work, casts aspersions on the whole department.
The IRS Association also refuted Kejriwal's claims that he worked as a commissioner of income tax, saying his batch has still not been promoted to that rank.
Kejriwal had joined the IRS in 1995. In 2003, he was promoted as joint commissioner and transferred from Delhi to Chandigarh. But he never joined there. Officials said he went on extraordinary leave for two years, from November 1, 2003, to October 31, 2005, and resigned in February 2006.
"The IRS Association takes cognizance of and conveys its strong anguish and hurt at various statements being attributed to you which malign the image of the I-T department and its employees, blaming them for corruption in a generalised manner, through media, including various TV and FM channels," IRS Association President Dileep Shivpuri said in the two-page letter to Kejriwal.
The Association emphasised that Kejriwal's wife, Sunita Kejriwal, is also a member of the tax department, and that such statements by him were unnecessarily damaging the image of the service.
"We request you to desist from and immediately stop making such statements in public and in the print and electronic media; otherwise, we will be constrained to take steps to protect our image," it warned.
This is not the first time Kejriwal has got into a tiff with the income-tax department. Two years ago, the department had written to him over his failure to settle the dues of Rs 9.27 lakh while quitting the service. Kejriwal had gone on study leave from November 2000 to October 2002. According to the rules, he was required to work for the government for at least three years after returning from the leave.
Kejriwal, however, had maintained he had not violated any conditions and questioned the timing of the department's letter, which was sent "after a silence of three years" on August 5, 2011 - a few days before Anna Hazare started his fast.
