B.V.R. Chowdary, a whistle-blower who helped the Income Tax Department seize a huge sum of unaccounted-for money 13 years ago through a tip-off, still waits for the promised reward under the search-and-seizure scheme, besides facing constant threats.
Sharing the documents and letters sent to the department to remind it of the reward, Mr. Chowdary, who is from Yarnagudem in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, told The Hindu that over Rs. 1 crore in unaccounted-for money had been seized from three leading contractors in a raid on their firms and houses in Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram districts. The Director-General, Income Tax Department, had deputed a special team to carry out these raids in January 2001.
The officials promised to pay him 10 per cent of the amount recovered from the contractors as reward under the search-and-seizure scheme in vogue at the time.
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Accordingly, he was asked to sign the Form-E register after a ‘panchanama’ was conducted. The officials told him that he would get the reward after seven or eight years, the time usually taken for completing the recovery formalities.
After a long wait, when there was no response from the I-T Department, a badly let-down Mr. Chowdary started sending petitions to various I-T officials.
“My struggle continues as there is no proper response from these officials. Another problem is there is no transparency in the department on the actual amount seized from the tax evaders,” he said.
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He moved the Chief Commissioner, Income Tax Department, the Central Board of Direct Taxes and the Union Finance Ministry to direct the Director-General, Investigation Cell of the I-T Department, to provide him official data relating to the seizure of cash and a copy of the register on which he had signed.
When there was no response from these officials, he filed a petition under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. But the I-T Department turned down his request on the ground that its investigation cell did not come under the purview of the RTI Act.