Health minister's cook handled his mining business: I-T Department

CHENNAI: An illiterate cook in health minister

C Vijaya Baskar

's household played a key role in managing his vast mining business, a source in the Income Tax department told TOI. The state registration department had frozen 100 acres of land and a stone quarry belonging to the minister and his family members in his native village in

Pudukkottai

district.

Cook Subbiah was the minister's 'benami' contractor, coordinating dealings between SRS Mines and Rasi Blue Metal, said a senior I-T official, seeking anonymity. All documents pertaining to the two companies, jointly owned by sand mining baron Sekhar

Reddy

and Vijaya Baskar, had Subbiah's name, he said.

Reddy, who was arrested in March by the Enforcement Directorate on charges of money laundering, was released on conditional bail in May. Reddy continues to be in the news with reports of sleuths claiming to have found his diary with notings of alleged payoffs to politicians.

"Subbiah did not maintain any records for the metal quarried by SRS Mines, a firm jointly owned by Reddy and the minister. We sifted through all the documents seized from the mines and Rasi Blue Metal factory. We found that Subbiah has been used as a point person. We were told he has a long association with the minister's family," the I-T official told TOI.

The I-T department questioned Subbiah, who revealed he had used some crude method of accounting, said the official. "Subbiah used chalans to transport the blue metal out of the mines to Rasi Blue Metal factories. It looked like he handled all the mining operations on the 100-acre patch of land," said the official.

The quarry and land are in the names of the minister and his immediate family members. "The land has been parceled under several survey numbers. At one period of time, the land was used for agriculture purposes. But, over time, after the blue metal was discovered in the area, the land was converted into mines," said the official. The mining company earned huge monthly profits and the proceeds were divided among Reddy, the minister and senior AIADMK partymen. The company made several illegal payments out of the profit, the official said.