I-T dept asks Kejriwal to pay dues of Rs 9 lakh

In more embarrassment coming for Team Anna, reports have emerged that Anna Hazare's aide Arvind Kejriwal was slapped a notice by the Income Tax department last month.

The Income-Tax notice slapped on the Magsaysay Award winner asked him to pay dues of more than Rs 9 lakh.

The notice was served a week before Anna Hazare kicked off his anti-corruption crusade on August 16 at Ramlila Maidan.

Incidentally, officially, Kejriwal is still an IRS employee as the department has not accepted his resignation tendered in 2006.

The I-T department maintains that Kejriwal violated bond conditions and his resignation, will be accepted only once the dues are cleared.

Team Anna member Justice Santosh Hegde says the timing seems vindictive.

"At a time when he has done so much in the movement of Anna Hazare. The government seems to be taking vindictive steps, it looks to me at the first sight. I think people at large will misundersatnd this. Five yrs back he left his job, he signed a bond and now when amidst all these happenings, they slap him this amount and say come and pay within a week, looks vindictive to me," said Justice Hegde.

On being asked whether the government will harass every member of Team Anna, Hegde said,"I don't know, may be so. Such attempts have been going on for a long time, either to denigrate them or to harass them in one way or the other," he said.

The BJP too questioned the government's intentions.

"Arvind Kejriwal is spearheading the battle against corruption. Whenever anyone has raised a voice against corruption in the government, he or she is targeted. It's rather amusing and incidental that whosoever carries a movement against government ends up landing with a notice. It does raise a sense of suspicion whether its the intent of the government," said BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy. (IBNlive)