New Delhi: The BJP and the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) have tried to clear the air on Caravan magazine’s report. In a detailed press note, the CBDT has denied that the documents were not investigated, pointing out that the loose sheets of Xerox copies were recovered during a raid on Congress leader D K Shivakumar’s group on August 2, 2017.
However, they could not lay their hands on the original diary and the Forensic sleuths refused to examine the Xerox copies unless they got to see the originals. ,The loose sheets prima facie appeared to be of a doubtful nature and were given by the person who was being raided for tax violations,” the press note said.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad cited the CBDT clarification to assert that the photocopies of the so-called diary were a forgery, concocted by the Congress to defame Yeddyurappa. He said it is an old ploy of the Congress to get a false story published in a sponsored magazine, hold a press conference, and even file PIL in courts.
Prasad said that the probe should have been also conducted on the documents recovered from Karnataka MLC Govind Raju, a political adviser of then Chief Minister Siddhrmaiah, in which there were entries in the name of SG and RG that may be actually Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Nonetheless, the IT Department had confronted Yeddyurappa on 25.11.2017 with the material available.
However, he denied having anything to do with the content of the loose sheets and claimed he was not in the habit of writing a diary; nor were the loose sheets in his handwriting. He also provided a sample of his handwriting to verify his claim and said the sheets were fabricated with the political motive of tarnishing his political image, the CBDT press note said.
