NEW DELHI: A day after the Enforcement Directorate attached his farmhouse in Delhi, currently worth Rs 27.29 crore, in connection with a disproportionate assets case against him, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, terming the action being taken against him as a well-planned conspiracy to destroy his public image in the run up to the Assembly polls, today accused the ED of concealing facts and giving out a ‘concocted’ value of the assets seized by it, just to ‘sensationalise’ the matter.
In a statement issued here, Mr Singh said he would take appropriate legal remedies to contest all persecution and not only come out clean, but also politically victorious as the people of Dev Bhoomi Himachal had full faith in him.
In his statement, Mr Singh said that while one expected the political opponents to distort facts to drive political mileage, it was a matter of grave concern that a responsible Government agency was behaving in such a manner and spreading a canard against him.
He alleged that the Centre had been using its full might to harass and destablise a duly elected government and the ED and the CBI were being misused to probe “bogus” charges against him, even though nothing incriminating had been found so far.
”An officer with RSS background, Vinod Sharma (Deputy Director of Income Tax, Faridabad ), was used without jurisdiction to create false, baseless and fictitious survey reports and dossiers under instructions from the IT Department, Chandigarh, with malafide intent to help create false cases using ED and CBI,”Mr Virbhadra Singh said.
Singh said that the farmland in question was purchased for only Rs 1.20 crore by the company Mapple, promoted by his son Vikrmaditya. He gave Rs 90 lakh to his son from his personal account through proper banking channels and the remaining amount was paid from his personal accrued moneys.
His family took friendly loans amounting to Rs 5.90 crore from V Chandersekhar and the amount had been paid back in full with interest long time back and accounted for tax appropriately. ”It is on record that the said property was purchased for Rs 1.20 crore but the ED gave its value at Rs 27 crore.
It turns out that an officer Ajay Singh, whose wife is a BJP MLA from UP, was assigned the duty of assessing Maple as Assistant Commissioner of Income Tax, New Delhi, who instead of assessing the revenue, made malafide conclusions that the property was worth Rs 27 crore.
”He was supposed to assess the incomes. Now the ED is using the baseless revenue assessment figure of Rs 27 crore to sensationalise the matter to malign and defame him,”he said.
He said all this was a matter of record, yet he and his family members were being harassed and persecuted using multiple central agencies since 2013.
”The extent to which these agencies are being misused can be judged from the fact that even marriages of daughters and helping son to build a legitimate career is being construed as a criminal offence and draconian laws are being made applicable in matters which are of revenue nature and non-cognisable.
”That the ED is doing all this as part of a plan becomes evident from the fact that even before a legal notice of provisional attachment of the property was served to the company, the media was unofficially briefed about the action and its timing made it all the more suspect,” he alleged.
”The same issue was raised by BJP leader Arun Jaitley during the 2012 Assembly Elections to derive political gains, but people outrightly rejected his unfounded allegations and voted the Congress party to power,” Mr Singh said.
Mr Singh said he would take appropriate legal remedies to contest all persecution and not only come out clean, but also politically victorious as the people of Dev Bhoomi Himachal had full faith in him. (AGENCIES)
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