The Income Tax department has sent a notice to the wife of Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi for unaccounted payment to billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi.
According to media reports, Singhvi’s wife bought diamonds worth Rs 6 crore, of which only Rs. 1.5 crore was paid through cheque.
According to a report in the Firstpost, Congress leader Singhvi has said that there has been no cash transactions with Nirav Modi.
“We must have purchased jewellery from various stores. But, there is no cash transaction with Nirav Modi,” Firstpost quoted him as saying.
Singhvi last week also had denied any link of his family with jewellery designer Nirav Modi and Gitanjali Group promoter Mehul Choksi, both accused in the Rs 11,400-crore Punjab National Bank fraud case, and charged the BJP with playing “cheap politics”.
“BJP/NDA’s cheap sense of politics has reached ludicrous and ridiculous proportions. Neither my wife, sons nor me have anything whatsoever to do with Gitanjali or Nirav Modi companies,” he said in a statement.
Singhvi said Nirav Modi’s company was a tenant of a Kamala Mills property owned by Adwait Holdings in which his wife and sons are directors.
Nirav Modi, 46, a regular feature on the lists of rich and famous Indians since 2013, was booked by the CBI, along with wife, brother and Gitanjali Group promoter Mehul Choksi on 31 January, for allegedly cheating the state-run PNB to the tune of Rs 280 crore.
The bank subsequently sent two more complaints to the CBI on Tuesday, saying the scam was worth more than Rs 11,400 crore.
The jewellery designer is understood to be a citizen of the country but his brother Nishal and wife Ami are not Indian nationals. They all left India between 1 and 6 January, the CBI had said.
(With agency inputs)