The Hindu : Row over tax notice to Shukla

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 02, 2004

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Row over tax notice to Shukla

RAIPUR, APRIL 1. A controversy has sparked off in Chhattisgarh over an Income Tax Department notice to veteran Congress leader and Madhya Pradesh's former chief minister Shyama Charan Shukla, asking him to cough up about Rs 20 lakh in connection with the more-than-decade-old hawala scandal.

Addressing reporters here last evening, Mr Shukla alleged that the NDA government was attempting to drag him into the scandal during the election time.

Mr Shukla, who is pitted against the Union Minister of State for Mines, Ramesh Bais, in Raipur for the April 20 polls, said the department served a notice on March 8, asking him to pay the amount within 15 days.

Describing the move as ``politically motivated,'' Mr Shukla said the department carried out an inquiry against him, suspecting that he received Rs. 5 lakhs several years ago.

Later, the department issued a notice for recovery of half that amount.

``I filed an appeal with the IT Tribunal, Nagpur, where the matter is pending,'' he added.

``My name was neither linked with the scandal nor figured in the `Jain dairy','' he claimed, adding that the CBI did not file a charge-sheet against him.

Alleging that the action was at the behest of the NDA government to ``harass'' him in the run-up to the hustings, the former chief minister sought to know from the department whether it had also issued any such notices to leaders including Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani, External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and other names figured in the scandal.

Meanwhile, a senior official of the department refused to comment on the issue, merely saying that the IT Act's provisions prohibited the department from disclosing such matters.

UNI

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Row over tax notice to Shukla