KOCHI: Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau on Monday informed the Kerala High Court that former Finance Minister KM Mani has abused his official position and without any authority ordered stay on recovery of proceedings amounting Rupees 65 Crores in favour of the poultry dealers when such authority was vested with the Chief Minister.
VACB filed the statement in response to a petition filed by KM Mani seeking to quash the case registered against him on allegations of allowing tax exemptions to Ayurvedic cosmetic product companies and Thomson group, a Thrissur-based poultry company.
When revenue recovery proceedings had initiated against Thomson Group for tax evasion, they approached KM Mani seeking stay of the proceedings. On the same day, Mani had ordered that "Subject to payment of Rs 12 crore before January 2013, recovery proceedings may be kept in abeyance till the disposal of the appeal."
VACB submitted that Minister of Finance is not authorised to grant stay for revenue recovery proceedings. Only Chief Minister is the authority to grant stay for revenue recovery proceedings for amount exceeding Rs 5 lakhs, that too for realisation of arrears on installment basis according to the merit of individual cases. Hence, Mani abused his official position. The illegal transfer of officers in the post of Deputy Commissioner (Appeal), Ernakulam is also an illegal act favouring poultry dealers of Thomson group. This amounts to criminal misconduct as per provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
The second allegation against Mani was that he conspired with Ayurvedic Cosmetic Manufacturers and illegally granted retrospective effect to tax reduction of cosmetic products in the budget causing huge loss to the exchequer. VACB submitted that despite of disapproval by the Taxes Department as well as the Subject Committee, KM Mani gave retrospective effect to the tax reduction of tax of Ayurvedic Cosmetic product to 4 percent from 12.5 percent. It was prima-facie revealed that Mani had taken undue interest in granting retrospective effect to tax reduction in favour of Ayurvedic cosmetic manufacturers. The Commissioner of Commercial Taxes as well as subject committee (Finance matters) rejected the request of Ayurvedic product manufacturers to give retrospective effect to tax reduction for cosmetic products. But Mani ignored all objections. The allegation of corruption involved in this deal needs detailed investigation. The agency questioned Mani and 11 others as part of the preliminary inquiry.
VACB made it clear that Mani had abused his position as Finance Minister and committed criminal misconduct.