Election Commission, Income-Tax Dept to vet candidates’ affidavits with eagle eye

It’s a joint venture of a different kind, one which involves two key arms of the government.

The Election Commission and the Income-Tax Department are joining hands yet again to tackle the menace of unaccounted money influencing electoral outcomes. Both have agreed on a new procedure for scrutiny of affidavits filed by the candidates with the Election Commission.

The IT Department will, for the upcoming general elections, verify on a priority basis the affidavits referred to it by the Election Commission. Independently , the Department has framed its own guidelines for verification of the affidavits.

The two-way process will benefit both the Election Commission and the Income-Tax Department.

One outcome is validation of the affidavit filed.

If assets shown in the affidavit are reflected in the I-T returns, then both will have nothing further to say.

If an asset is disclosed in the affidavit but not in the income-tax return, then the Tax Department can initiate action under the income tax law to bring unexplained investments to tax. “Whatever is relevant for the Election Commission we will share with them. They are going to look at it from the perspective of Representation of People’s Act,” a senior CBDT official said.

For the information-sharing mechanism to work effectively, the CBDT has now asked the commission to give information in data form.

In the recent Assembly polls as well as the last general elections, the I-T Department had verified and scrutinised the affidavits filed by the candidates with the Commission.

But it did not undertake such an exercise for all the affidavits. It only focused its energies on scrutiny of the top two candidates who polled the largest votes. The scrutiny strategy this time round will be slightly different. The Department will scrutinise on priority the affidavits of only those candidates referred to it by the Commission.

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