Feb.21, 2010

The Income Tax officer who was investigating the Rs 2,000 crore graft case involving former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda was transerred on Friday. The BJP alleged this was done under pressure from the Centre to hush up the probe. Congress denied the allegations, accusing the BJP of shooting in the dark.

Congress today hit out at BJP, which attacked the Centre over transfer of an Income Tax officer looking into the Rs 2,000 crore money laundering scam involving Madhu Koda, and challenged the saffron party to come out with some substantive evidence against its claim.

“BJP is in a desperate search of issues. After their Indore convention only produced old wine in a very convoluted ideological bottle, they have been going across the board from questioning the resignation of a particular official in PMO (Prime Minister’s special envoy Shyam Saran), to now alleging that an Income Tax officer has been removed at the behest or at the instance of certain Congress leaders.

I would request the BJP if they have any substantive or any tangible evidence to back their claim then let them come out with it and the government would respond to it appropriately,” party spokesperson Manish Tewari said.

Earlier the Jharkhand unit of BJP had slammed the Centre for transferring Income Tax officer of Bihar-Jharkhand Ujjwal Chaudhary, saying it was deliberate and was done mid-way of the investigation, which was intended to hush up the probe.

Mr. Chaudhary was the chief investigator in the Rs 2,000 crore money laundering scam involving former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda.

Terming the transfer as a matter of concern, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “The IT official’s transfer at a time when important leads were emerging shows that somewhere pressure is being built.”

“Madhu Koda scam is such a big scam whose boundary is not limited to only Jharkhand. It ripples also in Mumbai and Delhi. Some names keep on coming,” Mr. Prasad said adding that his party would like an honest investigation into the entire scam “more particularly when Koda himself had publicly said that he would open the names of real people at an appropriate time”.

Earlier the BJP had raised questions over the resignation of Prime Minister’s special envoy Shyam Saran saying that the Centre should explain why Mr. Saran decided to quit.