Cash seizures: Poll officials say only Rs 29 crore returned

HYDERABAD: Two days after Forum for Good Governance (FGG) said that 90% of the cash seized during the assembly elections in Telangana in December had been returned, the Telangana chief electoral officer’s (CEO) chambers on Monday said that out of the Rs 97 crore seized, only Rs 29 crore was released after due verification by various agencies.
Senior officials said that police, revenue and other departments had handed over Rs 59.52 crore to the incometax department, while the amount seized by the I-T department was Rs 25.48 crore.The I-T department released Rs 14.22 crore out of Rs 85 crore under its custody. Some of the seized cash is under the custody of courts as criminal cases had been registered.
When contacted, secretary, FGG, M Padmanabha Reddy, said: “We have district-wise information as obtained by us through the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Let the office of CEO release district-wise information about the number of seizures and cases in which cash was released.”
He said: “The I-T wing can only verify whether the seized cash is black money or white money, and it will not ascertain whether it is meant for bribing voters. This can be done only by the police. In many replies, which we received from the police, without registering FIRs about the seizures police said the case is under investigation.”