Bhandari case: Income Tax dept to book case under new Black Money Act

The Income Tax department is mulling booking defence consultant Sanjay Bhandari, said to be linked to Robert Vadra in an alleged benami property transaction in London, under the stringent anti-black money law in connection with its tax evasion probe against him.

Bhandari, against whom the department conducted searches in April last, is likely to be summoned for detailed questioning "as early as next week" to seek his explanation on his bank transactions.

It is also likely to cover certain emails that were said to have been recovered from Bhandari who had purportedly deleted them from his system and were recovered by the tax sleuths later, official sources said.

Under the new anti-black money law cases of overseas illegal assets, which till recently were probed under the Income Tax Act, attract a steep 120% tax and penalty on undisclosed foreign assets and income besides carrying a jail term of up to 10 years.

Efforts to contact Bhandari did not fructify.

The sources said registration of such a case will also enable the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to register a separate case under the stringent anti-money lundering laws.

ED is currently probing the case under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), under which the dealings are civil in nature.

They said the IT department is awaiting replies to some of its queries in this case from overseas locations and a case under the new law will be booked post this.