The News Minute | June 10, 2014 | 8:36 AM IST
When the Income Tax department started probing the alleged unaccounted funds of former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan’s relatives, it stumbled upon something. Balakrishnan's daughter and son-in-law have been receiving money from the Mumbai-based Rosy Blue India Pvt Limited.
Rosy Blue's founder Harshad Ramniklal Mehta's name figures in the list of account holders in the LGT Bank in Liechtenstein. He has been under the scanner for sometime now. Mehta also has stakes in Kochi IPL team. I-T Deputy officials say that Balakrishnan’s daughter K B Sony and son-in-law P V Sreenijan, received a “professional fee” from Rosy Blue. This was for the period 2009-2010. But the couple actually rendered no service to the company.
The assessed income of Sreenijan in 2009-10 was Rs 2.11 crore, while Sony’s was Rs 37.28 lakh.
The I-T department says that on receipts from Rosy Blue, Sreenijan did not deny received Rs 1 lakh per month. Though the company made it very clear that it did not entrust them with any duty. IT officials also note that Sony and Sreenijan had made huge land and building investments.
Sreenijan on the other hand says that the company paid them retainer fees. Also questioning the IT department on why they did not initiate any proceedings all this while, and said that in that case they should investigate the people who sold the land to them.