Tuesday, November 8 2005 15:27 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Finance Ministry may independently scrutinise whether there are any tax violations by the 125 Indian companies named by the Volcker committee report for allegedly paying kickbacks to the Saddam Hussein Government to get contracts under the UN oil-for-food programme.

"There is no formal probe but we will look into the tax returns of the 125 companies in the normal course to see whether there is any violation," a top Finance Ministry official told PTI.

This will be independent of the judicial probe by the former Chief Justice R S Pathak into Volcker's findings.

"As of now, we do not know if there are any tax violations by the 125 Indian companies named by Volcker," the official said, adding that there may be an examination of their tax returns to check for any violation.

What was needed to be seen was if there was any tax evasion by understatement of profits by the Indian companies by showing payments made to the Iraqi regime, which according to Volcker report add up to Rs 100 crore, the official said.

The 623-page UN inquiry report by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is understood to have named 125 Indian companies, which included STC, Reliance Industries, Kirloskar Engines, Ajanta Pharma, Mohan Exports, L T Overseas Ltd, Jord Engineers, National Electrical Industry, Jain Irrigantion Systems, Lucky Exports and Airpac Exports.

These are among the 2,400 firms from all over the world, which are alleged to have illegal payments totalling $1.8 billion to the then Saddam Government.

DaimlerChrysler, Volvo and Siemens also figure in the list.