A case was filed by the CBI against Virbhadra Singh, chief minister of Himachal Pradesh. Even raids were conducted at 11 places, which include his Delhi residence and Himachal, on the day of his daughter’s marriage.
A preliminary enquiry was being carried out by the agency against Singh, Pratibha Singh – his wife, Vikramaditya Singh – his son, Aparajita Singh- his daughter and Anand Chauhan, an LIC agent. The enquiry was to probe assets acquired disproportionately by the family. On Saturday, the enquiry was turned into an FIR and the raids were carried out.
As per the CBI, allegation on Singh and his family members were over the acquisition of illegal income/assets, which were worth Rs 6.1 crore, during his tenure as steel minister from 2009 to 2011.
According to officials, when Virbhadra Singh was in charge of union steel minister, he invested his suspected illegal income through the LIC agent by taking LIC policies on his name besides his family member’s names. The income was shown as that has come from agriculture.
Allegations were that IT returns were filed by Singh for assessment year 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 by showing income from agriculture as Rs 735,000, Rs 1,500,000 and Rs 2,500,000 respectively. The income was exempted under the Income Tax Act.
Prashant Bhushan who wrote to the CBI Director besides filing a petition in the High Court of Delhi said, "In 2012, in order to explain the unaccounted money, Singh filed revised IT returns for assessment year 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 showing revised agricultural income, showing an 18 to 30-fold increase of income in the three years. The total increase in agricultural income amounted to Rs 6.10 crore.”
-Sumana
