A day after the Income Tax Department provisionally attached assets allegedly linked to Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ajit Pawar, his office on November 3 said no properties linked to him had been seized and that the agency had not sent any notice on this count.
Mr. Pawar’s lawyer Prashant Patil, while stating that the agency had sent a letter seeking clarification on certain issues, said media reports on the alleged seizure of the properties linked to Mr. Pawar had “no basis in fact”.
“While a clarification has been sought from the Income Tax Department on some issues, the I-T Dept.’s letter will be answered in an appropriate manner and proper action will be taken through administrative and legal means,” Mr. Patil said, adding no property related to Mr. Pawar had been seized or any notice issued by the I-T Department in this regard.
A clarification issued by the Deputy Chief Minister’s office alleged that reports (pertaining to the attachment of assets) were ‘planted’ in the media and were “baseless, inconsistent with facts and motivated by slander.”
“Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has nothing to do with the action of the Income Tax Department…We appeal to the media to check their facts before reporting any news and not fall prey to any propaganda,” read the clarification issued by Mr. Pawar’s office.
On November 2, BJP leader Kirit Somaiya, who has been targeting Mr. Pawar and other Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government leaders over alleged financial irregularities, had tweeted saying that among the assets provisionally attached by the I-T Department were the Satara-based Jarandeshwar sugar factory (estimated at ₹600 crore, a South Delhi flat (worth ₹20 crores), the Nirmal office of Parth Pawar (Ajit Pawar’s son), estimated at ₹25 crore and a Goa resort valued at ₹250 crore.
Sources had said that the value of the attached properties exceeded more than ₹1,000 crore.
The NCP has claimed that Mr. Pawar had “no links” whatsoever with the properties, calling it a ploy “to defame him”.
NCP leader and Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik said the properties attached by the I-T belonged to someone else and not Mr. Pawar.
Last month, teams of I-T authorities had raided businesses including sugar factories and searched the homes of Mr. Pawar’s sisters in Kolhapur and Pune, as well as the Mumbai office of his son Parth Pawar .
At the time of the raids, Mr. Pawar had said that he felt aggrieved that authorities were raiding the homes of his sisters in Pune and Kolhapur while stressing that all firms and entities linked to him had always paid their taxes regularly.
NCP chief Sharad Pawar, too, had reacted strongly to the raids , remarking that the action reeked of “excessive use of power” and said that the I-T raids were perhaps a reaction to his strong comments on the Lakhimpur Kheri incident in Uttar Pradesh, which he had likened to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre .
