Bengaluru, Apr 9: In a hard hitting petition, the Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Karnataka and Goa has charged that Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, by alerting tax evaders in the State has violated the Oath of secrecy.
In a letter addressed to Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar, IT Commissioner B R Balakrishnan has stated that certain developments, which took place, post raid, conducted by the IT officials on certain personalities in Karnataka, have posed a grave threat in conducting a free and fair elections in the State.
Stating that in the course of Assembly elections in Karnataka, in 2018, a modus operandi of making government funds to certain Contractors and taking cut back in cash from them was discovered, the IT Commissioner had pointed that the same modus operandi was followed ahead of the Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka.
“During the last few weeks, it was observed that government work orders to certain contractors were issued along with the huge funds released on war footing in the months preceding to the elections”.
In his letter, the commissioner, said that when the IT officials were preparing to raid on the houses of Contractors, in Hassan, Mysuru and Mandya, had requested the State police to allow utilize the services of the Central forces stationed in Karnataka, which was duely approved by the Police department.
However, a day before the IT officials was to go ahead with their plans, Chief Minister had made a public statement, informing about the impending plans of the raid and seizure on certain Contractors.
“Chief Minister became aware of the impending search, only our request for police protection” he had stated.
Chief Minister, while revealing the classified information to make public, also threatened to emulate “Mamata Bannerjee” tactics against the IT officials.
The IT Commissioner, in his plaint, also brought to the notice about the protest meeting conducted by the Chief Minister, and his cabinet colleagues and also KPCC President, over the issue in front of IT Office.
“Such a protest by Chief Minister and his Cabinet Ministers appears to be an attempt to browbeat and intimidate officers of the Income Tax and this should be considered, whether this amounts to preventing government officers from discharging their duties".
“This should be seen as a direct attack on the Election Commission of India”, he added.
The IT Commissioner, while demanding a through inquiry into the incident, had also appealed to consider to entrust the investigation to an outside agency.
He also appealed to the Karnataka Chief Electoral Commissioner to deploy Central Forces and kept at the disposal of the Directorate of the Income Tax department.
Meanwhile, the Chief Electoral Officer, Sanjiv Kumar, had sent the letter to the Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala to take necessary action over the issue.
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