Blackmoney case: Court asks IT dept to give docs to Qureshi

A Delhi court today asked Income Tax Department to supply documents to businessman Moin Qureshi, who is facing prosecution in a black money case for allegedly not disclosing an income of nearly Rs 20 crore.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pritam Singh directed the IT department to provide legible copies of documents by September 11, the next date, after Qureshi's counsel said some of the documents were illegible.
The court had earlier granted bail to Qureshi, a meat exporter, after he had appeared before it as an accused following summons issued to him in the case.
Qureshi's employee Aditya Sharma, also summoned as accused in the case, was granted bail by the court after he appeared before it and furnished the bail bond.

While granting bail, the court had imposed the condition that both of them would not leave the country without its prior permission.
The court had earlier taken cognisance of IT department's complaint under various provisions of the IT Act relating to making false statement and the IPC for alleged offences of criminal conspiracy, giving or fabricating false evidence in a judicial proceeding.

The complaint had said the IT department was conducting a probe in the matter and had questioned Qureshi on February 15, 2014 at his residence here.
During questioning, Qureshi had made a false statement when he was asked about his income and assets and those in the names of his family members or associates, the department alleged.

It claimed that when Qureshi was asked to furnish the list of lockers in banks, he had told the officials that he only had one locker with HSBC Bank's South Extension branch.
However during investigation, the department found that he had 11 lockers which were in the names of his employees and associates but the articles belonged to the businessman.
The lockers were operated by the employees of AMQ Group of Qureshi and on his instructions, the IT department said, claiming that over Rs 11.26 crore in cash and jewellery worth over Rs 8.35 crore were found in these lockers.

Later, Qureshi admitted that the money and the articles belonged to him and had surrendered everything to the IT department saying it could deduct income tax from the seized money and return rest of the articles to him.
Regarding Sharma, the department had said he had tried to mislead the department by making false statement regarding the lockers.