Prabhat Jha writes to Chidambaram against I-T officials

Prabhat Jha writes to Chidambaram against I-T officials
Suchandana Gupta, TNN | Jul 29, 2013, 08.32 PM IST

BHOPAL: The BJP's national vice-president PrabhatJha on Monday wrote a strong-worded letter to Union finance minister P Chidambaram, vehemently denying that his flight tickets were sponsored by Madhya Pradesh based businessman and mining king Sudhir Sharma. On Saturday, a national daily broke the story from New Delhi that flight tickets of RajyaSabha member PrabhatJha and RSS general secretary Suresh Soni were paid by Sudhir Sharma.

The newspaper report was based on a confidential income tax department appraisal report of raids conducted in the residential and official premises of Sudhir Sharma and a construction honcho Dileep Suryavanshi two years ago.

In his letter, an irate Prabhat Jha threatened to move breach of privilege in the Rajya Sabha against two income tax officials whose intension he said was to defame a BJP vice-president''. Has the income tax department been given the authority to defame a member of Parliament and a citizen on baseless accusations? Is it not known to the IT department that as an MP I am entitled to 38 free flight tickets annually? I can still make some 40-50 such flight travels left-over in my quota. So why should I ask for someone else to purchase tickets for my travel?'' Jha asked.

Jha alleged that the IT department purposely defamed him with baseless accusations and then leaked its report with the intention of maligning and targeting the BJP under orders from the Congress-led UPA Centre. Raising various questions on how a confidential document under the possession of the income-tax department can get leaked to the media, he asked the Union finance minister to initiate prompt action against the income-tax officials responsible for the entire conspiracy.

He further wrote: We have a request for you since we consider this a matter of breach of privilege of a member of Parliament as also of the Parliament. When we give a breach of privilege notice against the two income tax officials to the chairman of the House for protection, you will stand as a protector.''