Maya’s cold winter: CBI freezes Rs 11 cr in 84 accounts

With 84 bank accounts and 70 immovable properties under scrutiny, officials maintain the disproportionate asset case against Mayawati could be one of the biggest for the CBI. It was only in the Harshad Mehta scam probe that a larger number of bank accounts — 159 — came under scrutiny.

On their part, the Mayawati camp cries foul terming the CBI moves as ‘‘harassment’’.

Says Rashid Alvi, leader of BSP parliamentary party, ‘‘Mayawati is responsible only for the money in her own accounts. It is not the CBI’s business to inquire into the money which her family members have and certainly not into the accounts where their money has further been deposited. This is very unfair and the CBI will have to pay for its illegal actions.’’

With the investigation gaining momentum, sources say there is enough indication that Mayawati and her brothers were using the services of professional ‘‘book-keepers’’ to make the cash deposits. Inputs have also been received from the Income Tax (IT) Department which indicate money laundering.

The 45 secondary accounts under the CBI scanner belong to companies like Telecom Associates, Bharat Associates and Time Capital Limited. The CBI is now looking into the antecedents of these companies.

Now that all the bank deposits have been frozen, records of transactions are being collected by the CBI to analyse the rate at which huge cash deposits were made from 1997 onwards. The CBI has found that several of the accounts had been opened by Mayawati and other brothers even in the curent year. An amount of over Rs 2 crore have been found in personal accounts operated by the former chief minister.

Income Tax records with the CBI show that Mayawati had herself declared an income totalling Rs 1.1 crore from 1995 onwards and that her brothers had a low salary as Government employees.