I-T Department prosecutes Navodaya Trust chairman

Bengaluru: A sitting Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and chairman of the Navodaya Education Trust, Raichur, Sunki Rajender Reddy, has been prosecuted by the Directorate of Income Tax (Investigation), Karnataka & Goa on grounds of alleged "tax evasion under section 276C (1) & 277 of the Income Tax Act and causing huge loss of revenue to the central government," said an official source. 

Conviction under the sections amounts to fine and rigorous imprisonment of seven years.

The prosecution follows the search and seizure operations, which were conducted by the I-T Directorate at the Navodaya Education Trust in December 2015, in which the taxmen had reportedly seized Rs 20 crore in cash along with some incriminating documents and had unearthed unaccounted income of several hundred crores

The prosecution against Mr Reddy was launched in November last year before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, Raichur and subsequently, in December the MLA had filed an anticipatory bail application before the Principal Sessions Court, Raichur. While granting the anticipatory bail, the court had directed Mr Reddy to surrender before the investigating officer and asked him to furnish personal bond of Rs 5 lakh along with surety bonds of equal sums from two other persons before the IO. 

The MLA on January 5 had appeared before the IO and furnished the bonds as directed by the Court.