BJP spokesperson, Sambit Patra on Friday accused Robert Vadra of putting pressure on Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for revoking the Income Tax order which penalizes a company that gave a loan to another entity to buy Vadra’s land in Rajasthan.
Patra called Vadra a “tained damaad(son-in-law)”and claimed that in 2010, Vadra’s Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd had bought 70 hectares of land for nearly Rs 70 lakh and sold it to another entity, Allegeny Finlease Pvt Ltd, in 2012 for Rs 5.15 crore which is “seven times the original cost”.
He further accused Bhushan Power and Steel Limited (BSPL) for giving an unsecured loan of Rs 5.64 crore to Allegeny Finlease for buying the same land.
Slamming Congress, Patra said, “This is only the “tip of the iceberg”. The main corruption lies elsewhere. BPSL was being investigated by the I-T Department around the same time it gave loan to Allegeny. It was told by I-T through notice that for 2004/05-2011-2012, you need to pay tax for additional income of 800 crore.”
Patra told, “BPSL wrote to Settlement Commission saying this is wrong. Settlement Commission, around June 15, 2012 releases a draft saying you’ll have to pay additional tax of 500 crore; no immunity granted for prosecution penalty. When Settlement Commission released draft, after 15 days, a new bench was reconstituted which overturned the order of the old bench. First bench had called the original RS 800 crore is unaccounted money.”
He also alleged that pressure was built on the I-T department causing alterations in the final order which granted relief to BPSL.
To all these allegations, Vadra replied, “The allegations are false and are probably being leaked by the government as polling day in Rajasthan comes close. Interestingly, most of the issues arising thereof happen to be sub-judice.”
He further questioned, “Is it a mere coincidence that this also coincides with certain government agencies accelerating their activities and raking up issues that either have no connection to me at all or I have already responded to years ago and cooperated with them fully over the last four years?” He also asked BJP to “focus on topics such as unemployment and misgovernance” in Rajasthan.