AAP receives I-T notice over donation

Party says ready for probe but wants SIT to look into funding of all parties

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Congress and 50 other entities have got Income Tax notice as the Centre initiated investigation into issuance of cheques by companies.

The Finance Ministry has said “they are acting as entry operators to convert illegal cash into legitimate money.”

The notices were issued on Monday, a day before the counting of votes in Delhi.
A statement by Central Board of Direct Taxes issued on Wednesday said, “These notices seek information about the identity of the contributors and other relevant details which are necessary to complete the process of investigation”.

The Income Tax Department also asked the AAP to respond to its queries by Monday. It has sought detailsof the persons who made the payment, receipts to the person who delivered the cheque, if there was any other transaction which has not been reported. It has sought to know why the companies and directors were not traceable at the addresses mentioned in documents.

Just before the Delhi elections, AVAM, a breakaway group of the AAP had claimed that shell companies who had no net worth of profits had contributed four cheques of Rs 50 lakh each to AAP on the midnight of April 15 last year.

The AAP since then has been saying that the government with all its enforcement agencies was free to probe the donations.

AAP spokesperson Atishi Marlena said Wednesday that the party received the notice and that they were open to probe.

“We are open for any probe by the Income Tax department or the Enforcement Directorate. We want this issue to be probed so that this allegations can be put to rest. But while welcoming the probe, we also want an SIT to probe political funding of all political parties and not just the AAP,” she said.

The Congress, which accepted having received donation of Rs 10 lakh by a company, however, cautioned against doing “politics” on the donation issue.

Party Treasuer Motilal Vora said that the particular company has given a cheque donation of Rs 10 lakh to Congress in November last year with a cover letter furnishing all details like PAN number.

He said that since a notice has been given, Congress will reply to the IT department regarding the donation received.  The CBDT in its statement said, “recently in Kolkata, this investigation led to detection of substantial unaccounted income. In these cases, the unaccounted income was sought to be converted into legitimate money with the help of non-genuine companies which were acting as entry operators”.