Former ADMK Minister C Vijayabaskar is at centre of the Income Tax attacks after the central agency has thrown a big bombshell at him as the agency's latest submission in the court has brought one of the shocking scams of Tamil Nadu back to the spotlight. C Vijayabaskar had served as the Tamil Nadu Health Minister in the previous ADMK regime and being an ADMK MLA currently, he is one of the senior leaders in the party. 

While Vijayabaskar was the minister of health and family welfare, the central agency had conducted raids at the godowns in North Chennai in April 2017 and exhumed piles of gutkha susbtance that was banned in Tamil Nadu. The gutkha products were sold covertly across the state and after the raid, the IT department has confiscated an evidence that there was several money transactions between the gutkha traders and Vijayabaskar. 

Seizing the banned substance and several documents, the central agency began initiating its process of investigating the accused and in the midst of serving as a minister, Vijayabaskar had faced repercussions for his illicit trade while denying the allegations. The ADMK leader has also been accused of committing several scams including taking money from a mining company and all these charges are being probed by the IT department. 

As part of the investigation, the Income Tax department attached 117.46 acres of land owned by Vijayabaskar in Pudukkottai and the department has further frozen four of his bank accounts in order to recover Rs 206.42 crore in tax dues, excluding interest. Challenging the Income Tax department's move of seizing his assets, Vijayabaskar has approached the Madras High Court seeking a directive to stay the order of the central agency. 

In his petition, Vijayabaskar had claimed that the bank account in which he received the MLA salary was frozen by the Income Tax department due to which he can't able to withdraw the money for expenses related to his constituency. Responding to his petition, the Income Tax department on Thursday - December 1 made its submission to the Madras High Court bench comprising of Justice Anita Sumanth. 

In its submission, the Income Tax department had thrown a bombshell at Vijayabaskar by informing the court that the former ADMK Minister was receiving unaccounted money from Gutkha manufacturers and SRS mining company. Submitting the counter affidavit, Tax Recovery Officer Kumar Deepak Raj said that during the search operations, enormous material was seized from Vijayabaskar. 

The affidavit said, "The evidence clearly suggested that Vijayabaskar indulged in tax evasion by the way of claiming excess quarry expenses, unaccounted sales of Blue Metals, excess quarrying, undisclosed receipts from SRS mining, undisclosed receipts from the manufacturers of Gutkha/Panmasala." The department further said that the orders for attaching the properties and freezing of bank accounts were passed only after giving a chance to Vijayabaskar to pay at least 20 percent of the outstanding income tax dues of Rs 206.42 crore. 

"The immovable properties were attached on October 20 after providing an opportunity to the petitioner to pay only 20% of the outstanding demand for 2012-13 to 2014-15 to protect the interests of the revenue", the affidavit read. Furthermore, the Income Tax department rejected Vijayabaskar's claims that it has seized his bank account in which he was receiving his MLA salary. The department said that the account maintained by the former ADMK minister in Chennai has Rs 8.50 lakhs during the financial year 2022-23 and the withdrawals in the account were towards personal expenses and not for his constituency works. 

After recording the submission of Income Tax department, Justice Anita Sumanth granted time for Nithyaesh Natraj, counsel for Vijayabaskar, to file a response on behalf of his client. The Justice has further ordered the High Court Registry to list the matter on December 12.