Cash front finger at politicians - Dramatic claim byrecord declarant

Mahesh Shah. (PTI)

Basant Rawat, TT, Ahmedabad, Dec. 3: A little-known businessman who had declared a record Rs 13,860 crore under the Centre's income disclosure scheme surfaced in a television studio this evening and claimed he had been fronting for politicians and industrialists.

Mahesh Shah, the Ahmedabad-based businessman who had earlier been reported missing, said: "The money I declared belongs to politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen whose names I will reveal to income-tax officials."

Mahesh, 67, said he had declared the income as his own for a commission. "I admit my mistake, which I should not have done," he added.

Minutes later, he was whisked away from the studio by tax officials and police and taken to a police station.

Hours before Mahesh had surfaced, Suresh Mehta, a former Gujarat chief minister who has left the BJP, alleged the businessman was close to Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.

But the BJP dismissed Mehta's claim. "The party has nothing to do with him (Mahesh Shah). No one in the party knows him," BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya told The Telegraph.

Mehta, now an out-of-job politician, alleged that Mahesh used to arrange the auction of the gifts Modi received when he was Gujarat chief minister. The money went into government welfare schemes.

When one particular auction flopped, Mehta claimed, Mahesh himself bought all the items and then was reimbursed by the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank. Amit Shah was the bank's chairman till 2003 and continues to be one of the directors, Mehta said.

But Ajay Patel, the cooperative bank's current chairman, told this newspaper he did not remember having paid anyone for any auctioned-off gifts that Modi had earlier received as chief minister.

BJP spokesperson Pandya said that neither Mahesh nor any other private individual had ever been involved in these auctions, which were always organised and conducted by district collectors.

Mahesh had disappeared just before income-tax authorities searched his premises and those of his chartered accountant last month. He told the TV channel today that he had fled to Mumbai because he realised he would not be able to pay the first instalment of his taxes (following the black money disclosure) as some of the politicians had backed out.

"The income-tax department too suspected that I was involved in money-laundering," he said. "I was scared. But now I have decided to reveal all."

A senior BJP politician said Mahesh was "a nonentity" who showed an annual income of Rs 2-3 lakh in his tax returns, and that he was not known well enough in the real estate business to which he is supposed to belong.

"Clearly, he was a front for some people who were using him to convert their black money into white," the politician said.

He said Mahesh was not a BJP functionary but had been doing "efficient liaison work" between the state government and "an advertising firm and some other people" for many years.

"That was his unique selling point," he said, adding that he had often seen the unassuming businessman in the corridors of power in Gandhinagar.

Pandya, the BJP spokesperson, denied that Mahesh had done any liaising for the state government.

Mahesh, accompanied by his chartered accountant Tehmul Sethna, had told income tax authorities on September 30 - the last day of the disclosure scheme - that he had Rs 13,860 crore in cash lying at several places in Gujarat and elsewhere. He was supposed to pay a 45 per cent tax - that is, Rs 6,237 crore - of which he had to pay the first instalment of Rs 1,560 crore by November 30.

But, sources said, the income-tax department suspected that Mahesh did not have the cash and that his declaration may have been a ploy to launder money after the demonetisation on some people's behalf - a theory that presupposes he and his alleged clients knew about the move beforehand.

The department cancelled his "Form No. 2" through which he was to make the payment and searched his premises as well as those of a relative and Sethna.

Mahesh's son Monitesh Shah told a local television channel that his father had not come home for more than a month and that he had "no idea" about his father's dealings and income disclosure. But he claimed his father was not absconding.

Chartered accountant Sethna said he had had no reason to doubt his client's claim about the black money in his possession.

"He (Mahesh) is sharp and intelligent; he is well-connected and knows influential people. He used to do high-value deals in Gujarat and Maharashtra," Sethna said, without elaborating.

Sethna said he had known Mahesh since 2013. The chartered accountant claims his clients include ministers and bureaucrats whom he helps invest their money.