RTI group Sangrash on Saturday filed a writ petition in the state High Court over the the RTI on the Rs 600 crore tax evasion in Jammu and Kashmir.

The petition has been treated as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and a division bench will hear the case on July 20.

An RTI query which was revealed on Friday stated that just in the last 10 years, over Rs 600 crores of taxes have been evaded. Many defaulters are the rich and the powerful.

Maulvi Iftikar Ansari, Senior PDP leader who runs Ansari Motors owes Rs 18 Crores, Shaurya Motors owned by son of Janak Raj Gupta, a Congress leader owes Rs 26 Lakh and Powergrid & BSNL are other leading defaulters. Powergrid owes Rs 50 Crores and BSNL owes Rs 25 Crores. While BSNL says that Sales Tax case is pending in the court, powergrid did not responded.

Money, which should have been spent in Jammu and Kashmir, is stacked somewhere else.

Son of PDP leader Iftikar Ansari, Imran Ansari says, “We have paid Rs 9 crores and if political linkages are kept aside, it is the dept which will owe us money.”

The RTI had also listed Chief minister Omar Abdullah's political advisor Devinder Rana as a defaulter. With his company Jamkash owing Rs 45 lakhs since 2006. But in a quick response to the RTI, on July 14, 2011 Jamkash obtained a tax clearance certificate from sales tax department.

There is a list of defaulters, who cross the Rs 10 lakh mark but the list does give a sense of how during the years of militancy, tax evasion became lucrative for the rich and the might.(IBN LIVE)