GUWAHATI, April 3 - A majority of the district election officers (DEOs) in the Northeast are not complying with Election Commission (EC) instructions to report information regarding cash deposits and withdrawals.
Northeast�s Principal Director of Income Tax (Investigation) Sanjay Bahadur today said the EC has specifically instructed that cash deposits or withdrawals above Rs 10 lakh shall mandatorily be passed on to the Income Tax department for necessary action under Income Tax laws.
While DEOs are not complying, banks too have expressed ignorance of the ECI guidelines.
�Since notification of the elections on March 10, only 14 out of the total 112 odd DEOs in the region have sent reports till March 31. When compared to our own intelligence reports from banks, even these reports have been substantially under reported,� Bahadur said, adding that the matter has been repeatedly flagged to the state chief electoral officers by the Income Tax nodal officer but the �response so far has been negligible�.
The ECI has directed the Income Tax directorate to use all resources at their command to make expenditure monitoring effective.
�Therefore, in absence of required inputs from designated authorities so far, several important steps have been taken independently by this directorate. Financial Intelligence Unit of India (FIU), RBI and major banks operating in the Northeast have been asked to supply digital data relating to cash deposits and withdrawals above Rs 10 lakh,� the IT official said.
The data is being received in batches since the past one week and is being analysed. The Income Tax directorate has also requested for real-time reports for the election period for prompt action.
