A confidential document of the Income Tax Department submitted to the Interim Settlement Board has revealed politicians across party lines in Kerala accepted money 'illegally' from state-owned entity Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL).
The contents of the document of the IT Department showed a long list of persons have received money from the CMRL.
The list reportedly includes leaders of not only the Congress, CPM, and the Indian Union Muslim League but also those of the CPI and BJP, among others.
The list of money recipients includes members of parliament, members of legislative assembly, former ministers, area leaders of some political parties, retired and serving IAS and IPS officers.
The IT Department reportedly has all the details of the amounts paid to each of the persons on the list. The documents of the Interim Settlement Board order had revealed the names of only a few of the recipients.
The payees received amounts ranging from a few lakh rupees to several crores in cash.
The IT Department has stated making such payments in cash was a violation of the law and political parties could not claim these payouts as donations.
As a follow-up measure, the department is likely to conduct inquiries with the payees in order to confirm the payments, and if so, to explain how the amounts had been accounted for.
The findings of the IT Settlement Board was first reported by Malayala Manorama in its August 9 edition. The report had said that chief minister's daughter Veena Vijayan and her company Exalogic Solutions received Rs 5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh a month respectively for three years from 2017, a total of Rs 1.72 crore from CMRL. The report said that Exalogic had signed an agreement with CMRL to provide marketing consultancy and software services.
However, the Income Tax investigation revealed that no such services were rendered but still the monthly payments were made without fail.
