The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed dissatisfaction over the income-tax department’s probe report on the 2G scam against some telecom companies and their heads, describing it as a “sketchy” one, and asked its investigation wing to submit a comprehensive new report by May 13.
A bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly monitoring the probe by the CBI, ED and I-T department in the 2G scam wanted the I-T investigation wing to cover possible tax evasion in past three years by the companies which got 2G spectrum licences on January 10, 2008.
This was the I-T investigation wing’s first status report submitted to the court ever since it started monitoring the probe though the I-T department was the first to begin a probe after it was permitted by the Union home ministry to intercept the telephonic messages of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, now a key CBI witness.
The bench told I-T department counsel Mukul Gupta it should have been “quicker” as it was the first to start. “This isn’t a normal case of tax evasion,” the bench said, rejecting the counsel’s argument that the department’s role comes in only after any illegality is established.