IT dept attaches assets of TN Health Minister Vijaya Baskarin

02 August, Chennai

The Income-Tax department has attached the properties of Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijaya Baskarin the wake of IT raids at his residence and office premises and that of his family members in April.

IT department sources said some of his properties, including an 100 acre land and the stone quarry owned by the Minister were provisionally attached last night. A sub-registrar in Pudukkottai district has attached the properties on the orders of the IT department.

The Minister was camping in New Delhi and meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other Ministers to get Tamil Nadu exempted from NEET. Despite the freeze on the assets, the ownership continues to remain with the Minister and his family members and the action was neither confiscation nor seizure.

The sources said the owners were only debarred from leasing, renting, mortgaging or selling the properties, till the IT probe was over.

It may be recalled that in April this year, IT officials raided the offices and premises of the Minister, his relatives and close aides and seized incriminating documents that revealed payment of money to the voters of the R K Nagar Assembly seat, the bypoll to which was subsequently cancelled following the cash for vote scam.

After the raids, the IT officials also claimed that the Minister was a silent partner in sand baron Sekhar Reddy’s (who was earlier arrested in November last year for exchanging old currencies during demonetisation) firm SRS Mining.