The Income-Tax department, in their show cause notice to former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, has mentioned that the code word “steel in tonnes” was used for the illegal transfer of public money to Naidu by top infra companies, as kickbacks for handing them contracts worth thousands of crores. According to the IT notice which was accessed by The Pioneer, Naidu, who is also the president of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), received more than Rs 18 cr from Infrastructure and real estate firm Shapoorji Pallonji during the 2018-19 period. The amount was transferred by using the code “steel in tonnes”. According to the IT authorities, Naidu is accused of possessing “undisclosed income” of Rs 118 crore, which he allegedly received from several infra companies.
The show cause notice issued against Naidu, sought why tax proceedings should not be initiated against him for possessing “undisclosed income” of Rs 118 crore. The IT investigation against Naidu was initiated following a raid carried out at the premises of Manoj Vasudev Pardasany (MVP) who has been participating in the tendering process of several projects in Andhra Pradesh since on behalf of Shapoorji Pallonji & Co. Private Limited (SPCL).
As per the IT notice, MVP, had sent an email to himself under the subject as “CBN steel in tonnes.” The body of mail was as follows: ““5 cbn hyd”, ”10 cbn hyd”, ”2.05 dng mum”, ”5 tonnes dng mum”, ”4 tonnes delhi 4th Jan 18”, ”3 tonnes mum” ”8 Jan”, ”2 tonnes of mum 9th”, ”1 tonne mum” ”11, 2 tonnes delhi mp (pending)”, Manoj V Pardasany, MVP Consults, M’cons Group”.
“The emails have been written by MVP to himself and have been cryptically written so as to apparently show a date-wise record of delivery of steel in tonnes to “CBN” around January 2018 at different locations. The emails were confronted to Mr MVP during the course of recording of his statement on 21.01.21 u/s 131(1A),” reads the I-T notice. The report about the IT notice surfaced at a time when Naidu is making efforts to revive alliance with the BJP ahead of next year’s Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.