BENGALURU: The Income Tax Department on Saturday clarified that the page of a diary, purportedly written by BJP state chief B S Yeddyurappa — allegedly having details of the money provided by him to various party leaders — was not a part of the documents seized by the department, during searches at the residence of Congress Minister D K Shivakumar.
In a press conference held to highlight the achievements of the I-T, Karnataka and Goa region, B R Balakrishnan, Principal Chief Commissioner of Income Tax said, “The first page produced in an article by a news magazine, is not part of the documents seized by us. It seems to be an attempt made to influence another investigation but we have not succumbed to it.”
Balakrishnan said, while the other pages quoted in the article were part of the set of the documents seized by the department, they seemed to be forged and not original.
“It is our judgment that it is forgery,” he said.
He said the document did not look like it had been written on a ‘day-to-day’ basis and that someone had tried to give the documents the halo of the I-T Department to pass them off as genuine because if they had been released independently, it would not have had much effect.
In a statement released by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on Friday, the board said that during a search of premises owned by D K Shivakumar, some papers were given to the raiding party — which were photocopies of the diary supposedly written by B S Yeddyurappa.
The statement, however, says that these papers could not be verified as the forensic lab asked for the original document, which could not be located.
CBDT claimed Shivakumar, when questioned, refused to reveal the source who gave him these papers and said that he did not have the originals.