Vadra benami case: Sanjay Bhandari to face fresh investigations

The Income Tax (IT) department is mulling booking defence consultant Sanjay Bhandari, said to be linked to Robert Vadra in an alleged benami property transaction in London, under the stringent anti-black money law in connection with its tax evasion probe against him.

 

Bhandari, against whom the department conducted searches in April last, is likely to be summoned for detailed questioning "as early as next week" to seek his explanation on his bank transactions.

 

It is also likely to cover certain emails that were said to have been recovered from Bhandari who had purportedly deleted them from his system and were recovered by the tax sleuths later, official sources said.

 

Under the new anti-black money law cases of overseas illegal assets, which till recently were probed under the Income Tax Act, attract a steep 120 % tax and penalty on undisclosed foreign assets and income besides carrying a jail term of up to 10 years.

 

Efforts to contact Bhandari did not fructify.

 

The sources said registration of such a case will also enable the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to register a separate case under the stringent anti-money laundering laws. ED is currently probing the case under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), under which the dealings are civil in nature.

 

They said the IT department is awaiting replies to some of its queries in this case from overseas locations and a case under the new law will be booked post this.

 

The department has already approached the 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.

 

ED has also served notice on him seeking details about his bank accounts, properties and other assets. Sources said probe in the tax evasion and assessment of income of Bhandari and few others is on  after the searches were conducted at multiple premises.

 

The taxman is said 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.

 

Vadra's legal firm has denied that he owned the London property directly or indirectly. It also denied Vadra has any business ties with an arms dealer or his aide.

 

The department has also written to the Financial Intelligence Unit to provide it with certain details of bank accounts and transactions which involve Bhandari and few prominent names in the political and bureaucratic circles.

 

It is expected that the taxman will soon get in touch with the Defence Ministry as Bhandari ran a consultancy firm and is said to have interests in procurements related to armed forces in the country.