‘20% dilution done’: Calls help CBI link income tax officer with arms dealer

The grant of sanction is being seen as a precursor for the CBI chargesheeting all four under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Verma himself is now back with the income tax department,posted as a joint commissioner in charge of headquarters and administration.

What is significant is that the CBI has made out a clear case of Verma being in cahoots with Nanda with an aim,as the CBI report states,to “minimise the income tax liability” of Suresh Nanda and “delete/dilute the role of Nandas in defence deals…”

The report lists the various meetings held between Bipin Shah and Verma in Delhi,Goa and Mumbai prior to all four of them being “intercepted” by the CBI in Hotel Marriott in Mumbai on March 8,2008. That was just four days after Verma had submitted the final 597-page appraisal report he had prepared to his bosses in the income tax investigation wing.

The CBI’s case is that at every stage of preparation of the appraisal report,Verma had consulted Nanda and his chartered accountant,and was regularly updating them on the deletions and dilutions he had done. Among the several conversations cited among the evidence for grant of sanction is one in which Verma informs Shah that “the first cuts are on place”,or “20% of dilution done…”,and so on.

Also,the agency has detailed how Verma had,in fact,handed over copies of large sections of the appraisal report to the Nanda camp before submission and ensured that none of the junior officials in the department would work on the final appraisal report. He had also warned Shah that while he had “diluted” the department’s findings,his superiors may put some strong remarks in their covering letters. He had also warned Nanda not to dispatch a point-by-point rebuttal against the order passed by the department immediately on receipt.

Thus,finance ministry officials said they have cited one telling boast that Verma makes on telephone to Shah,“I am telling you something,whatever we did,iska shayad 10 per cent nahin ayega aage (I will not even earn 10 per cent of this in future).”

CBI officials said that while they had arrested Verma and Nanda in 2008 (they got bail in two months) the reason they took so long in moving the request for sanction was that they were gathering details of a property purchase by Verma in a resort in Morgim,Goa,priced at Rs 4.4 crore. The CBI’s allegation is that the deal was struck by Verma even as he received regular payments from Nanda for watering down the findings and proposed penalties to be imposed by the department on him.