I-T scrutiny against Robert Vadra started during UPA tenure: FM Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI: Giving a new twist to the Robert Vadra case, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said the process for issuing Income Tax notices to him started before he took charge of the Ministry, in a clear hint that it was done during the UPA's tenure.

"The correct facts are whatever notices have been issued, the process was started before I took over this Ministry," he said.

"This whole process had started much before I became Finance Minister and to the best of my knowledge it is a computerised selection of which case has to be assessed and it is not the random draw. There is a criteria for of a case, you can choose for that," Jaitley said.

The Income Tax department has a system where individuals, that is assessing officers, do not take decision (of issuing notices), he said.

"If a particular return falls within the categories, which are marked categories, the computerised system itself chooses the case for scrutiny and therefore a particular return did had something which merited the scrutiny, the computer would have decided," Jaitley said.

He said it is for the assessing officers to ask for explanation and if valid explanation is given that is the end of the matter. "And if valid explanation is not given then they go and make an assessment order," the Finance Minister said.