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I am a victim of political vendetta, Virbhadra Singh says

CBI registers preliminary enquiry against Virbhadra Singh and family

NEW DELHI/CHANDIGARH/SHIMLA: The Income Tax department on Thursday asked the Enforcement Directorate to start a money laundering probe against Virbhadra Singh on finding that the Himachal Pradesh CM's loan provider and hydel power firm promoter Vakamulla Chandrasekhar had violated norms by self-funding a Rs 16.3cr IPO of his company, Tarini International Ltd, last year.Also, it is alleged that Virbhadra's family bought a farmhouse in the posh Sultanpur Dera Mandi area in Delhi for Rs 6.61 crore while the sale was registered for only Rs 1.20 crore. Vakamulla is said to have paid rest of the money to Virbhadra's family members, in 'cash' for acquiring the farmhouse. Sources say that the over Rs 5 crore cash component of the deal was paid in installments by the businessman on Virbhadra's behalf.The payment by Vakamulla was allegedly in return for favours to him by Virbhadra, which allowed him to run his hydel plant in the state. Vakamulla's company was allegedly given a lease of life by Virbhadra by allowing it to run the project despite questions surrounding its credibility.CBI alleges Virbhadra and his family tried to change its I-T returns after alleged bribe money was paid by Vakamulla's firm. Virbhadra filed the I-T returns for assessment year 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12 showing agricultural income of Rs 7,35,000, Rs 15,00,000 and Rs 25,00,000 respectively, which is exempt under the I-Tax Act.CBI suspects that the money allegedly received as bribe from the private company was shown as this agricultural income. Also, a note by I-T observes that five Kolkata-based shell companies with data entry operators as their alleged directors bulk purchased Tarini's shares while Vakamulla himself provided them Rs 10.9 crore to "give a cloak of legitimacy"."Prima-facie, the evidence showed that funds have been siphoned off from various Tarini group companies and the same have been invested back into the shares of Tarini International Ltd through certain paper companies. The investigations strongly suggest that unaccounted cash and income has been brought back into regular books of accounts and for buying assets for his family members and that Vakamulla acted as an agent and conduit in the process," says I-T director Zeena Handa's note to ED.Fresh field inquiries by I-T have now revealed that a modest data entry operator Bijoy Saraf controlled three of these Kolkata companies, Shallot Tie-up Pvt Ltd, Shallot Dealtrade Pvt Ltd and Shallot Vincom. Each firm had a dummy director: Jagdish Chander Basu, Apurva Pramanik and Lata Rani.The modus operandi was such that a commission of two paisa per Rs 100 was made to provide accommodation entries, known as 'jamakharchis', to disguise the alleged fake purchase of shares by one Sunil Kalyan.The method of providing entry was such that it broke up large amounts of money into smaller, less-suspicious amounts.I-T sleuths also discovered that Guinness Securities Ltd was hired as a lead manager and given Rs 50,000 to manage the IPO.Recorded statements of two commission agents, Sanjay Bansal and Sunil Kalyan, revealed that neither was there any purchase nor delivery of goods or any merchandise to substantiate entries in the ledgers of these Kolkata firms.