Parab, who belongs to the Uddhav Thackray faction of the Shiv Sena, is facing cases of corruption and money laundering. The people said this probably could be the first major attachment under the PBPTA against a politician after the Supreme Court recently held that an amendment to the Act in 2016 cannot be used retrospectively. These transactions have been recorded after the amendment was made.
Meanwhile, the tax department is also probing Rs 13 crore claimed by Parab as business income toward a joint venture floated by him with a cable operator. According to the people, the probe so far has revealed that the amount was paid by the cable network operator “for smooth functioning of business”.
“A senior official in his statement before the department revealed that the money was paid as ‘protection money’ for smooth functioning of the business in the area where Parab is influential. This, therefore, cannot be claimed as business income,” said a person in the know.
Parab was not immediately available for comment. In the past, he had called the cases against him as mala fide and politically motivated.
On the benami probe, the people said, the investigations revealed that Parab in 2019 had registered a land parcel (on which the resort now stands) in his name. He claimed to have sold it the following year to an aide, Sadanand Kadam, but the payment was made to Parab only in June 2021. “The payment was an afterthought in reaction to the reports on irregularities surrounding the resort and Parab’s ownership. This is nothing but a sham transaction done to conceal the real identity of the owner,” another person privy to IT findings claimed.
The tax department has identified Kadam, a cable operator, as the ‘benamidar’ (who is holding the asset) and Parab as the ‘beneficial owner’. Show-cause notices have been issued to both and the department has also passed a provisional attachment order in connection with the property. The notices have, meanwhile, been contested before the adjudicating authority.Under the PBPTA, a show-cause notice is served on a company or an individual who is holding the assets to explain the source of funds and other tax-related documents. An order passed by the initiating office under the law can be challenged before an appellate tribunal.
“Since in this case the transactions are between 2017 and 2021, the SC ruling won’t affect the order,” said one of the people.
In March, the tax department during its searches allegedly found unaccounted cash transactions of Rs 6 crore spent on construction of a resort by Parab. The department in a statement without naming Parab had said that it found that a parcel of land at Dapoli was purchased by a prominent politician of Maharashtra in 2017 for Rs 1 crore but it was registered in 2019. This land was subsequently sold to one of the persons covered in the search in 2020 for a consideration of Rs 1.10 crore. In between, a resort was built on the same land from 2017 to 2020.
The same property had also been provisionally attached by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case against Parab and his associates.
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