BHOPAL: It’s now the turn of Income Tax department to dig deep into the alleged financial transactions of the high-profile alleged honey-trap racket that was busted by Madhya Pradesh police in September 2019.
Two key accused, including the racket’s alleged mastermind Sweta Vijay Jain and another key accused Arti Dayal replied to volley of questions from multiple teams of income tax sleuths for over 13 hours at the MP and CG IT Department HQ in Bhopal on Monday and Tuesday.
While Sweta Vijay Jain went through marathon six hours statements recording process on Monday, Arti Dayal spent an hour more before the probing IT sleuths on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, another key accused woman of the racket will be brought from the Indore Jail in police custody for recording of her statements before the IT sleuths, who are primarily focusing on tracking the money trail of the money and valuables recovered from the arrested accused, besides establishing the source of those funds before summoning those sources for similar probe.
Right now the focus is on tracking the money trail and also from whom the money was sourced. Once the source of the money/valuables seized from the arrested accused is determined, fresh summons will be issued to those sources to figure out whether the money was illegal or not, besides finding out any possibility of undisclosed income/black money.
Informed sources confided to The New Indian Express, Dayal was asked on Tuesday about the sources of money seized from her premises as well as the bank locker held by her. Further, she was questioned about the big name from whom she and Sweta Vijay Jain had reportedly extorted Rs One Crore via honey-trap.
Importantly, the charge-sheet of the human trafficking case (which is part of the honey-trap racket) case mentions about Arti and Sweta Vijay Jain having honey trapped an IAS officer and blackmailed him to pay Rs One Crore, which was later shared equally among the two women and a TV channel journalist.
Cash and jewellery worth over Rs 86 lakh has so far been seized by state police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) from the premises and bank lockers held by Jain and Dayal. While cash-jewellery worth over Rs 62 lakh was seized from Jain’s premises/bank locker, cash-jewellery totaling over Rs 24 lakh have so far been seized from Dayal’s premises/locker.
The trio, including the two whose statements were recorded on Monday and Tuesday and another key accused whose statements will be recorded on Wednesday, have been summoned by the IT Department under Section 131 (1A) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, which confers power of a court under the Code of Civil Procedure (5 of 1908), while trying a suit in respect of discovery and inspection, issuing of commissions, enforcing the attendance of any person, including any officers of a banking company and examining him on oath and completing the production of books of accounts and documents.
Busted on September 18, 2019 by the Indore Police, the racket targeted rich and influential men, including politicians, bureaucrats, senior cops and businessmen, later to blackmail and extort money from them, help their select clients get major government works done through the honey-trapped men, besides also influencing government transfer-postings and related work.