The Himachal Pradesh chief minister, Virbhadra Singh.
Dharamsala, January 1, 2014: Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh is in the Capital to make his ground on the BJP allegation of corruption against him. Arun Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, had written the letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and marked a copy to CBI Director Ranjit Sinha making various corruption allegations, including that he received pay offs of over Rs.2 crore from a private steel firm during his tenure as Union Steel Minister.CBI is examining a letter and does not rule out the possibility of examining the Congress veteran at a later stage.
Virbhadra Singh has denied all charges and said that he was ready for a probe by any agency.
The STC had requested for a probe as Income Tax Department had recovered a set of documents from a Mumbai- based steel firm which alleged pay off to various ministries and some of the entries were marked against initials of 'VBS' and 'MoS APS'. There were four entries made to the listed beneficiary -- 'VBS'--which totalled up to Rs.2.8 crore from October, 2009 to October, 2010. Singh was Steel Minister from May 28, 2009 to January 18, 2011. The CBI, which is probing the case, did not rule out the possibility of examining Singh and his family members in connection with the case, they said.
CBI had claimed to have found revised income-tax returns by Singh during 2007-08 to 2009-10 showing income worth crores of rupees. Singh had filed Income Tax returns for three years-- 2007-08 to 2009-10-- of Rs 40 lakh each every year. This was later revised by him to Rs.1.5 crore per annum for all the financial years stating that he had included his income from his apple orchards, official sources said.
Meanwhile, the probe agency has recorded statement of insurance agent Anand Chouhan, who is said to have deposited Rs.5 crore in the bank account of Singh and his family towards buying life insurance policies.
The CBI had registered the Preliminary Enquiry (PE) against unknown persons last year after receiving a complaint from the State Trading Corporation. The CBI's probe was earlier to identify government officials who were allegedly shown as beneficiaries in the seized documents. // dharamsala news update, dharamsala information, dharamsala news, himachal news online, himachal news kangra, himachal news in english, himachal news today, himachal news, india news,