Ex Power Secy's wife appears in court, gets bail in I-T case

Former Delhi Power Secretary R K Verma's wife, who was summoned as accused for allegedly not declaring money stashed in an undisclosed company in the United Kingdom, was today granted bail by a Delhi court.
Ritu Verma appeared in the court in pursuance to summons issued to her earlier and sought bail.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Devendra Kumar Sharma granted bail to Ritu as the offence alleged against her was bailable and she was directed to furnish a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and a surety of like amount.
During the hearing, Income Tax Department's standing counsel, advocate Brijesh Garg, argued that it was a case of undisclosed money stashed abroad and while granting bail to Ritu, the court should impose strict conditions on her.

The court imposed bail condition on Ritu directing her not to leave the country without its prior permission.
Ritu, who was earlier summoned for February 9, was granted exemption from personal appearance by the court for that day only, after her counsel had submitted that she was in London.

She was directed to appear today and the court had made it clear that no further exemptions would be granted.
The court has now fixed the case for recording of pre- charge evidence on April 27.
The court had in January this year summoned Ritu as an accused in the case after taking cognisance on the complaint of Income Tax (IT) Department.

The IT department has said in its complaint that it had received information that the retired IAS officer's wife had floated a proprietary company in the United Kingdom's British Virgin Islands, of which she was the sole director.
It had claimed that the firm, Windsor Incorporation Inc, began its operations in July 2007 with 50,000 shares of one dollar each, which in Indian rupee equivalent was then valued at Rs 20 lakh and worth about Rs 30 lakh now.
The department had filed the complaint against Ritu, wife of Verma who was power secretary in Sheila Dikshit government, after receiving all documents of the company and memorandum of association, which were authenticated evidence.

It had said that initially Ritu had denied having any such company abroad and later stopped appearing before the department during the course of its investigation.
"She did not disclose the amount of around Rs 20 lakh in foreign country in her income tax declaration and did not show it in her income tax return too," the department had said.