I-T DEPT HIT BY EPIDEMIC ACT, BMC CHIEF HAS CARTE BLANCHE!

Mumbai: Chief Minister, Uddhav Thackeray, who heads the MVA government, told the state legislative assembly in March that Union government agencies were being misused to concertedly target non-BJP-ruled state governments, opposition party leaders and bureaucrats. He was quite right, if the experience of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal is anything to go by.

In February, Chahal’s office was issued a summons by the Income Tax (I-T) department seeking specific details about nine jumbo medical centres, with a capacity of 15,000 beds, set up in Mumbai in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Almost simultaneously, the Enforcement Directorate also launched investigations against the daughters of firebrand Shiv Sena spokesperson and Member of Parliament Sanjay Raut, regarding their commercial involvement with the BKC and Goregaon-based jumbo COVID-19 centres.

Strangely, on April 07, the I-T department withdrew the summons issued to the BMC Chief and even apologized for the ‘inconvenience’ to his office.

A senior I-T officer told First India, “There are individual cases of aberration caused by the overzealous conduct of some officers. In fact, in October 2021, the Bombay High Court also issued orders against another I-T officer for similar insensitivity, and penalized him Rs25,000 from his salary. These things should not happen, but sometimes do.”

The secretariat official also provided details of the back and forth that ensued between the IT department and the BMC’s legal counsel on strict condition of anonymity.

The IT summons was issued for the purpose of investigating alleged corruption in the setting up of the nine jumbo centres. It sought information on the tendering process, the number of tenders received, the procedure followed to award tenders, work orders issued, terms and conditions of tendering and dates of awards.

Chahal’s legal counsel in his reply informed the IT department that while it had asked questions regarding the tendering aspects of the jumbo centres, “… all these tenders were issued in March 2020 under the Epidemic Act of 1897.”

Chahal, himself, had taken up the BMC Chief ’s post much later in May.

The BMC Commissioner further stated (through his advocate) that his office enjoyed ‘carte blanche’ under the Epidemic Act which cannot be questioned by any authority as the Act was legislated by Parliament. The BMC Commissioner, citing the provisions of the Act, asked the IT department to “kindly withdraw the summons issued in the regard” failing which, he “would approach the Bombay High Court” in the matter.

Six weeks later, the IT department withdrew its summons.

Meanwhile, the status of the ED investigations is still unclear at the time of going to press.