PNS|Vijayawada
The Income-Tax Department has found that the code word “Steel in Tonnes” was used for siphoning off of public money by former chief minister and Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu, by accepting kickbacks from top infra companies after awarding them contracts worth thousands of crores of rupees. As per the I-T notice accessed by The Pioneer, crores of rupees received in 2018-19 from Shapoorji Palonji to Chandrababu Naidu was written in codes as “Steel in Tonnes”.
An email sent by MVP to himself has the subject “CBN steel in tonnes” and text as “5 cbn hyd”, ”10 cbn hyd”, ”2.05 dng mum”, ”5 tonnes dng mum”, ”4 tonnes delhi 4th Jan 18”, ”3 tonnes mum” ”8 Jan”, ”2 tonnes of mum 9th”, ”1 tonne mum” ”11, 2 tonnes delhi mp (pending)”, Manoj V Pardasany, MVP Consults, M’cons Group”. The cash transactions reportedly happened in Dubai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru.
The Income Tax Department has issued a show-cause notice to Chandrababu, asking why tax proceedings should not be initiated against him for having ‘undisclosed income’ of Rs 118 crore received as kickbacks from some infrastructure companies.
When MVP was confronted, he said, “I have seen these emails and have been sent from my email account to myself. However, I am unable to comprehend them right now or recollect the purpose or the relevance of the dates. These may be related to the requirement of steel for the various infrastructure projects which I was working on in Andhra, Telangana and J&K”
I-T said in the notice, “The emails have been written by MVP to himself and have been cryptically written so as to apparently show a date-wise record of delivery of steel in tonnes to “CBN” around January 2018 at different locations. The emails were confronted to Mr. MVP during the course of recording of his statement on 21.01.21 u/s 131(1A)”
MVP started working in Andhra Pradesh in 2017 to bag contracts for Shapoorji Pallonji and Company Pvt. Ltd. Siphoning off funds from such contracts has started since 2017. In this context, an email has been retrieved from the mail box (mp@mcons.in) of Mr. MVP, that was seized during the course of a search on him. The screenshot of the email dated. 28.01.2018, which has been mailed by Mr. MVP to himself had reference to Steel”
