The Wire (@thewire_in) tweeted: "Justice A.P. Shah demands income tax governing body review Sahara case"
Justice A.P. Shah Demands Income Tax Governing Body Review Sahara Case
Even as the Union government has maintained a conspicuous silence about the alleged involvement of important politicians in the Sahara-Birla bribery scandal, anti-corruption civil society organisations have started to raise their voices against what they say is one of the biggest scandals in recent memory.
On Monday, Justice A.P. Shah (Retd), head of the Citizens’ Whistleblowers Forum (CWF) – a forum consisting of prominent judges, lawyers, intellectuals and civil liberties activists – wrote to the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the governing body for income tax management, asking it to review and set aside the November 10, 2015 Income Tax Settlement Commission (ITSC) order, which absolved Sahara of all penalties under the Income Tax Act, 1961.
The Wire on January 5 had reported on how the ITSC ignored crucial evidence against Sahara, presented by the IT investigators during the unprecedentedly hurried hearings. Although the ITSC deemed the IT department’s appraisal report to be insufficient, in effect, it accepted Sahara’s explanation that the papers recovered by the IT department in a series of raids in 2014 were fictitiously prepared by a disgruntled employee to malign another employee of the company.