HYDERABAD: Searches conducted by the Income Tax department at the residence of Congress leader A Revanth Reddy, which led to a political furore, appears to have ended in a damp squib, at least for now, though it did end up raising the political temperature in the already charged up political scenario in the run-up to elections.
Nearly 50 hours after the searches, all that the I-T sleuths could lay their hands was on this -- bank details of Rs one crore bank deposits, at different intervals, by Revanth Reddy’s wife besides the Rs1.4 crore cash found at the residence of KL Sridhar Reddy, who happens to be a business partner in some of the firms of Revanth Reddy’s brother.
Unless the taxmen get conclusive evidence of Revanth Reddy’s alleged foreign bank accounts in Hong Kong and Malaysia, the IT operation on the working president of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee, has hit a dead end for now what with questions being raised over whether, before launching ‘’Operation Revanth Reddy,’’ the I-T sleuths did a proper home work or not.
Describing the findings of the I-T searches as ‘’not even peanuts,’’ highly placed sources in the I-T department told Express that while the cash deposits by Revanth’s wife and seizure of `1.4 crore from Sridhar Reddy was just insufficient to make a strong case though they could still seek an explanation about the source of this money, it all depends whether the department is able to get hold of details of Revanth Reddy’s alleged foreign bank accounts.
The I-T department can write to the foreign banks but that has to go through the Foreign Tax and Tax Research division of the Union Finance Ministry.
“The request has to go from the Government of India to the governments of those countries and this correspondence takes its own sweet time. When we confronted Revanth Reddy, he denied holding any bank accounts overseas and asked us to have it verified immediately. So unless there is conclusive evidence of foreign accounts, it is a weak case so far.
However, we have taken hard disks and other material from the house and let us see if we come across anything,’’ sources said. When asked whether the I-T department failed to do proper homework before conducting searches -- something that is normally done before commencing a search, a senior official just chose to say that ‘’we could have done better.’’
Interestingly, all through Revanth Reddy had been only parroting one line when taxmen asked him about the cash for vote case, which was ‘’It is a fake case.’’ He did not say a word more. Tax sleuths demand explanation by October 3The I-T sleuths have asked the ex-Kodangal MLA to provide explanation to some of their queries by October 3. One of them pertains to the cash deposits of `1 crore by his wife besides his links with Sridhar Reddy and some queries about his alleged bank accounts overseas. The sleuths have already questioned Revanth and his wife.
On the whole, the searches went on for 47 hours, which included 14 other locations. The searches concluded early Saturday morning. As the I-T officials left his residence, Revanth came out smiling and greeted his supporters even as a large contingent of policemen were deployed outside his Banjara Hills residence.