Madhya Pradesh pledges action against the corrupt

BHOPAL - The Madhya Pradesh government sought the Income Tax (IT) department’s report on raids that were conducted at the houses of government officials and businessmen for the second day Friday to initiate action against the officials concerned.

“We have asked for a detailed report from the Income Tax department and action will be taken against the corrupt officials after that,” Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told reporters.

The Income Tax department raids since Thursday at 13 places here have yielded huge cash, including more than Rs.3 crore (Rs.30 million) from one house, foreign currency worth over Rs.25 lakh and documents related to investments and properties.

Raids were conducted, among others, on the residence of women and child development principal secretary Tinu Joshi and her husband Arvind Joshi, who is the principal secretary of the Jail and Parliamentary Affairs department.

“Over Rs.3 crore in cash has so far been recovered from the house of the IAS couple. Besides, details of bank deposits worth Rs.2.25 crore have also been seized,” Director General of Investigations (I-T) for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Brajesh Gupta, said.

“Bank notes were recovered in a suitcase during raids that started Thursday. The action was taken on the basis of documents of heavy investments made in an insurance company by these officials, found during a similar exercise in 2009,” Gupta said.

According to sources, the couple is said to be involved in foreign transactions worth crores of rupees. The couple had also floated a company with a local businessman, in their son’s name.

Sources said Joshi confessed all the money was from unaccounted sources. There were also simultaneous raids at the houses of retired Bhopal Municipal Corporation commissioner M.A. Khan and a senior Chhattisgarh cadre IAS officer in Raipur, from where details about bank accounts with Rs.30 crore were found.

The residences of road and bridge development engineer R.D. Chaudhary, superintending engineer in Power Works Department Deepak Asai, his wife Jyoti Asai, and businessmen Sunil Agrawal and Pawan Agrawal dealing in fertilisers besides ICICI Bank manager Seema Jaiswal and bank agent Bharti Bhasne were also raided.

The Income Tax department is collecting details of accounts of persons concerned and their lockers were being searched. Documents relating to investment have been seized.

The raids were conducted after information that benami (proxy) investments worth crores of rupees have been made in various financial institutions.