Bhandari gets ED notice

The probe into the financial dealings of arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari took a new turn today with the Enforcement Directorate serving him notice seeking bank accounts and details of his properties.

The ED action has come even as the Income Tax has sought information from some countries about the properties purchased by him, one of which is said to have been owned and later sold by Robert Vadra in London allegedly facilitated by Bhandari.

Bhandari is also likely to face a case under the Officials Secrets Act as Income Tax department had allegedly recovered minutes of the meeting of Defence Acquisition from his residence during raids in the last week of April this year.

The ED has been shared with all the documents and information by the Income Tax department about Bhandari.

Efforts to reach Bhandari did not fructify as he neither replied to phone calls or messages sent on his mobile telephone.

The Enforcement Directorate may file a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) once the Defence Ministry gives its opinion about the classification of defence documents is recovered and a case under OSA is registered against him.

Income Tax returns of Bhandari and his set of companies besides Vadra's companies are being examined afresh by the tax sleuths before raising a tax demand on him.In the meantime, requests have been sent to various countries where Bhandari had opened a web of companies to share the bank information details, the sources said.   The tax department has approached authorities about purchase of a property and subsequent sell off as they believed that it was purchased from the kickback received by him for over Rs 2,800 crore Pilatus trainer jet deal for the Indian Air Force clinched in 2012.

The Air Force had purchased 75 of Pilatus in 2012 under a controversial deal but the requirement was for over 106 more planes.

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had last year cut this down and cleared a plan to purchase another 38 of Pilatus aircraft. However, the contract is still stuck on pricing issues.

In a related development, the probe is said to have found that Bhandari was constantly in touch with Civil Aviation Minister M Gajapati Raju's Officer on Special Duty Appa Rao, a charge denied by him.

Officials said the department approached the British Virgin Islands, 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.

They said the case against Bhandari was launched in April after the department received certain inputs about the financial activities of Bhandari and later searches were carried out against him in Delhi.

The department has reportedly 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.

Sources said probe in the tax evasion and assessment of income after the searches are still on. 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.