The Kerala government’s GST Department has refused to answer an RTI query related to the company of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s daughter T Veena.
The department is silent on whether the IT firm, Exalogic, owned by T Veena, paid GST on the amount received from the mining company, CMRL, for rendering services to them. It cited its obligation to protect the privacy of certain individuals as a reason to not reply to the query.
In its reply to the RTI query, the department said according to Section 8(1) (e) of the RTI Act, it cannot transfer any information as it is under an obligation to protect the privacy of an individual.
The New Delhi bench of the Income Tax Interim Settlement Board (ITISB) has found that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s daughter T Veena received Rs 1.72 crore from Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd (CMRL) for consultancy services that were never provided.
Reports said Veena and her firm, Exalogic Solutions, had entered into an agreement with the private company to provide IT, marketing consultancy, and software services to the latter. However, no services were provided, as the income tax investigation found.
The company told the Income Tax Department that the money was, however, paid in monthly instalments as per the contract. The Income Tax Disputes Redressal Board found that a nexus with a prominent person was behind the transaction.
Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan had earlier alleged that Veena did not pay the tax on Rs 1.72 lakh received from CMRL. If the tax had been paid, its records should be released, he said.
Responding to the RTI reply from the GST Department, Mathew Kuzhalnadan said the department’s response was very strange.
The Congress MLA further said that when he first raised questions regarding the GST transaction, AK Balan claimed that he would produce the documents related to the payment of tax the very next day, but he has not yet produced it.