KEJRIWAL WANTS AMIT SHAH PROBED OVER ‘HIDDEN WEALTH’

NEW DELHI: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday demanded a probe against Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah following allegations that he may have used a Gujarat property dealer as a front to disclose unaccounted Rs 13,860 crore.

The property dealer, Mahesh Shah, disclosed the unaccounted money under a tax amnesty scheme. “Amit shah should respond to Hardik Patel’s allegations. Very serious! It should be investigated,” the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader tweeted.

Mahesh Shah, a businessman from Gujarat, had made a surprising disclosure of Rs 13,860 crore two months ago.

However, the Finance Ministry on Sunday said that the amount declared by Mahesh Shah is most likely a “false” figure, and the I-T Department has already initiated an inquiry into the matter.

“There were two sets of declarations of high value, which were not taken on record, because these declarations were found to be suspicious in nature being filed by persons of small means,” the Finance Ministry said in a release on Sunday.

“The department has since commenced inquiries against these declarants (Mahesh Shah and four others) to determine the intention behind these false declarations,” it said.

Interestingly, Shah went missing on November 29, a day before he was supposed to pay the first instalment of tax levied on the hidden money.

He surfaced about a week later on Saturday at the ETV studio in Ahmedabad to claim that he was used as a front by some businessmen and politicians to declare the money.