‘Went by the law’: I-T dept’s counter to CCD founder VG Siddhartha’s letter

CCD founder VG Siddhartha was under the scanner of income tax department and the ED for alleged irregularities in his association with information technology company Mindtree Ltd.

As the search teams continue looking for Cafe Coffee Day founder VG Siddhartha, who went missing on Monday from Mangaluru, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said the investigation against him “was not very serious and detailed”.

VG Siddhartha, chairman of Coffee Day Enterprises that runs Cafe Coffee Day outlets, has been missing since Monday. (PTI Photo)

Siddhartha was under the scanner of income tax department and the ED for alleged irregularities in his association with information technology company Mindtree Ltd.

A senior ED official familiar with the development said, “The probe against V.G. Siddhartha was largely being done by the IT department and the ED probe was not very serious. It was on alleged tax irregularities which the concerned tax department was looking into,” reports Livemint.

Acted as per provisions of law: IT Dept

In the letter to directors of his company, Siddhartha said there was a lot of harassment from the Income Tax Department in the form of attaching “our shares on two separate occasions to block our Mindtree deal and then taking position of our Coffee Day shares, although revised returns have been filed by us”.

“This was very unfair and has led to a serious liquidity crunch,” he said.

Refuting the charges, Income Tax sources said the provisional attachment made by the department was undertaken to protect the “interests of revenue” and was based on credible evidence gathered in the search or raid action.

“The department has acted as per provisions of the Income Tax Act,” one of the sources told PTI.

Read: Coast Guard deploys ship off old Mangalore port to search for CCD founder VG Siddhartha

The entrepreneur, son-in-law of former union minister SM Krishna, asked his driver to stop his car on a bridge and told him to wait for him at the end of the bridge as he wanted to walk a bit. The driver waited for an hour and informed the family when Siddhartha didn’t return.

“He asked me to be at the end of the bridge and said he’d walk,” Siddhartha’s driver Basavaraj Patil has told the police. Siddhartha was reported missing from Jappinamogaru, which is very close to Netravathi river and just two to three kilometres from the sea.