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I-T official Vishwabandhu Gupta suspended

Controversial Additional Commissioner of Income Tax Vishwabandhu Gupta, whose disclosures on declarations by some Indian cricketers under the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme created a storm recently, has been suspended from service with immediate effect.

Gupta, who received the order from the finance ministry at 2000 IST today, said he had been penalised for pointing out that money through criminal means had been deposited under the scheme.

"I wrote to the finance minister three days ago asking that VDIS declarations be made public so that various criminal scams, including those involving cricketers, are exposed," he said. He added that he would challenge his suspension in the high court for it "violates my fundamental right to a profession".

The order, passed yesterday, said Gupta was being suspended as his continuance in office was likely to seriously subvert discipline.

The order also said Gupta would not be allowed to leave his headquarters in Delhi during the period of his suspension without prior sanction from the authorities.

Gupta claimed that after his disclosure that criminal money had gone into the VDIS, the government had been under pressure to go for a judicial review of the scheme.

He alleged that a large quantity of fake 500 rupee notes, circulated by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence, had been deposited under the VDIS.

"Several criminals made use of the scheme because their antecedents were not asked for," he said, adding that Rs 1.5 trillion had been regularised under VDIS against the target of Rs 350 billion.

Citing an example, he said Romesh Sharma, a politician alleged to have links with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and now in custody, had declared Rs 5.1 million under the VDIS, which was accepted by the department. After his arrest, the Delhi police revealed at a press conference that Sharma's assets had been assessed at Rs 5 billion.

Gupta shot into the limelight recently for his disclosure that a former Indian cricket captain had declared Rs 160 million under the scheme.

Though the officer hotly denied it, a secretly filmed video had him saying that the cricketer in question was Mohammad Azharuddin. Azharuddin declared that he would file a suit against Gupta for naming him. Gupta in turn declared that the videotapes were fabricated and threatened to sue tehelka.com, the Web site that made the film.

UNI

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