Virbhadra Singh

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Virbhadra Singh, 2011-14; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, Sep 27 2015

Virbhadra Singh, Discrepancies in his income tax returns; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, Sep 27 2015

Virbhadra Singh, The controversial Chamba hydro-electric project case; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, September 27, 2015

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.

Disproportionate assets

The Times of India, Sep 27 2015

Rohan Dua

Himachal CM runs a `dodgy' apple biz: I-T

The income tax probe into the disproportionate assets case involving Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh has revealed several irregularities ranging from apples being transported on scooters and Maruti 800 cars to a mandi that was not operational to Singh's staff justifying the unbelievable bumper yield of apple crop by attributing it to `God's benevolence'. The I-T probe, quoting the state horticulture wing, found that the sale of apples from Singh's Shrikhand orchard in Shimla could not have fetched him more than Rs 64 lakh as against Rs 1.55 crore he showed in 2011 when sleuths first detected the rise in his apple orchard manager Anand Chauhan's income. TOI is in possession of the I-T order dated March 18, 2014, based on the probe and interrogation of Virbhadra and Chauhan, which makes these revelations. In his reply to the I-T department, Chauhan said:, “The production of apple is wholly dependent upon weather conditions and mercy of God.“

The I-T order cited two cases of the region's biggest apple growers who could not fetch even one-third of the money Singh received for his crop -in one case the amount was as low as Rs 22.74 lakh -which was shown on much smaller piece of land. Interestingly , Singh first declared his income from apples at Rs 25 lakh for 2010-11, but later revised it to Rs 1.55 crore.

I-T sleuths also discovered that 18 vehicles, including scooters, tippers, oil tankers and motorcycles, were shown as modes of transport to ferry apples worth Rs 6.5 crore between 2008 and 2012.“Being a tipperoil tanker scooter, these vehicles were not in a position to carry apples,“ said the I-T order.

I-T sleuths also discovered that the Parwanoo fruit mandi in Solan, which Singh's transporters had shown as one of the destinations for apples, was not even functional in 2008 due to the ongoing four-laning of the NH-22 (Chandigarh-Parwanoo).

Singh had shown that from Parwanoo, the apples were sold to a firm, Universal Apple Associates (UAA), owned by proprietor Chunni Lal, whose name has also been included in CBI's FIR.

In 2008-09, Virbhadra had first shown his apple income as Rs 7.35 lakh but revised it to Rs 2.21 crore. The overall revision of agricultural income for three years by him was Rs 6.5 crore from just Rs 47.5 lakh.While probing the Rs 6.5 crore money trail, I-T found that even the addresses belonging to 13 unknown firms spread across Maharashtra, TN, Karnataka, Bengal and Kerala -where these apples were further sent by UAA to be either incomplete or non-existent.