Police look for concrete leads

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police has served a notice on the Income Tax (IT) department, asking it to assist in the probe into the DDA ‘scam’.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police has served a notice on the Income Tax (IT) department, asking it to assist in the probe into the DDA ‘scam’.

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Permanent Account Number (PAN) cards, which are issued by the IT department, were found to support even those names and addresses which the police suspect were fake.

“We want to know how these cards were forged,” said a police officer.

Police said the reserved category applicants availed of loans from banks using these forged PAN cards. Earlier, a direct selling agent of a bank had also been questioned in connection with the case.

In their first hint that the draw of lots conducted by DDA could have been rigged, police said they wanted to examine the software and the computers used during the draw of lots on December 16 last year. Police suspect that the computers could have been hacked into.

Police said they would collect the computers from DDA’s office for examination. “We do not rule out the involvement of insiders. We cannot leave anything to chance,” said the officer.

The software was developed by CMC Limited and it had been handed over to the computer-engineering department of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi for certification.

“If 10 applications were forged and belonged to people living in the same village in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, how could those 10 win the draw,” asked the officer.

“The purview of the case is quite large and we have obtained the names of (suspected) property dealers. If the need arises, we would register a case and move on with arrests,” said the officer.