After ED, CBI, now IT 'searches' Anil Deshmukh's Nagpur properties

Nagpur, Sep 17 After the Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Income Tax Department on Friday was "searching" premises linked with former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh in Nagpur and other places for alleged tax irregularities.

The developments came in the wake of the ED filing a charge sheet in the Deshmukh case which claims that the senior Nationalist Congress Party leader and an associate had allegedly received amounts of Rs 20 crore each.

The IT action covers educational institutions run or managed by the ex-minister or his family members or their close associates, certain offices, and residential premises.

The ED charge sheet came in the alleged corruption case against Deshmukh in which now dismissed cop Sachin Vaze had claimed that he was given a target to collect Rs 100 crore per month from Mumbai restaurateurs in his statement to the ED.

Vaze also alleged that Deshmukh and another minister had received kickbacks of Rs 40 crore from some police officers for reversing their transfers ordered by the then city police chief Param Bir Singh.

On Thursday, the state government suspended Deshmukh's ex-personal secretary Sanjiv Palande - an officer of additional collector rank - after his arrest by the ED on June 26 in the same case.