New Delhi: The Income Tax Department has filed four fresh chargesheets against lawyer Gautam Khaitan — an accused in the multi-crore VVIP chopper deal scam — on charges of tax evasion and possession of undisclosed bank accounts in Singapore, official sources said Tuesday.
Four supplementary chargesheets or prosecution complaints – pertaining to financial years of 2009-10 to 2012-13 — were filed before a special court here last week against Khaitan for offences under section 276C (1) (wilful attempt to evade tax) and 277 (Giving false statement on oath) of the I-T Act.
The sources said the latest development comes after the taxman obtained ‘fresh evidence’ that Khaitan was maintaining three bank accounts in his ‘own’ name in Singapore.
They claimed that Khaitan had not disclosed the ownership of these bank accounts before the tax authorities and that there were ‘substantial credit entries’ or financial transactions in these bank accounts.
The department, few months back, had also recorded his statement in the Tihar Jail as he was under arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case.
As of now, a total of 13 chargesheets have been filed by the tax department against Khaitan.
Last year, five such complaints were filed against him and his wife Ritu Khaitan under the anti-black money law for possessing alleged undisclosed assets abroad while in 2017 four chargesheets were filed against him for allegedly maintaining four bank accounts in Singapore in the name of British Virgin Islands-based shell companies as well as his own name.
The ED, which is probing the role of the Delhi-based lawyer in two money laundering cases, including the high-profile VVIP choppers case, said that he has been a beneficiary of Rs 850 crore slush funds generated out of defence deals.
(PTI)