India News | Varanasi Police Files Complaint in I-T Dept's Benami Case Against SP MLA Abu Azmi
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Varanasi/ The Varanasi Development Authority has filed a police complaint against a local real estate company following recent Income Tax Department raids in an alleged benami assets case against Samajwadi Party MLA Abu Azmi and others, official sources said on Thursday.
Varanasi/Lucknow, Oct 19 (PTI) The Varanasi Development Authority has filed a police complaint against a local real estate company following recent Income Tax Department raids in an alleged benami assets case against Samajwadi Party MLA Abu Azmi and others, official sources said on Thursday.
In its complaint, the authority has accused the company, Vinayak Nirman Private Ltd, of forgery and cheating.
The case against the company was registered by the Varanasi Police on Wednesday under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (whoever fraudulently or dishonestly uses as genuine any document), they said.
The Varanasi Development Authority (VDA), the sources told PTI, acted on the directions and an official communication issued by the Lucknow-headquartered investigation wing of the Income Tax (I-T) Department and sent a complaint to the Varanasi Police against the company.
It has accused the company of "forging" a 2012 issued completion certificate of a residential project called Varuna Gardens project in Varanasi's Hamrautia locality, they said.
In its complaint, the VDA said that it conducted a probe, post the I-T searches in the first week of October, and found that no such certificate was issued by the joint secretary of the authority to the real estate company for the project.
The tax department recently attached 45 flats built in the Varuna Gardens project, apart from some other assets and bank deposits of the Vinayak group, worth about Rs 150 crore (market value).
Sources indicated that the police FIR will be shared with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which can analyse it for possible registration of a money laundering case against the accused entities.
The I-T department is also probing if the real estate group, in which Azmi is alleged to have been a director in the past, claimed certain tax deductions on the strength of the allegedly forged completion certificate. If proven to be correct, it will attract legal action under the I-T Act, 1961.
The sources had earlier alleged that 2BHK and 3BHK flats in the Hamrautia project were "benami" properties linked to Azmi, and these are estimated to be worth Rs 30-32 crore (market value).
Benami means 'no name' or 'without name' and such properties are those in which the real beneficiary is not the one in whose name the property has been purchased.
The department had raided at least nine premises on October 5 as part of this probe and covered some alleged benamidars (in whose name a benami property is standing).
Azmi (68) is a third-term MLA from the Mankhurd Shivajinagar seat of Mumbai. PTI NES
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)