Wednesday, May 10 2006 17:46 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: After the intense heat from the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the oil-for-food scam investigations, Aditya Khanna, kin of former external Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh, and a few others are facing Income Tax department probe into their financial transations for a period of last five years.

Highly-placed IT sources confirmed that Khanna, Director of Hamdan exports Andleep Sehghal and some others had been asked to submit their bank statements to the tax department for evaluation.

The sources said the tax department wanted to look into the flow of money into the bank accounts of these individuals and whether the same had been reflected in the annual returns submitted by them to the income tax department.

"We have asked them to submit details of their bank accounts. We want to see how much money they brought in and did not show in their income tax returns," a senior Income tax official, probing the case, said.

Jagat Singh, son of Natwar Singh, is also believed to have been asked to submit his statement but there was no official confirmation.

While Khanna was not available for comments, Sehghal said the matter was under investigation and that he would not liketo comment.

The Income Tax probe comes close on the heels of the ED's preparation of the 'show cause" notice, a virtual chargesheet under FEMA, to people who allegedly received kickbacks in the oil-for-food scam.

The Income Tax department would also be providing details about the tax returns filed by the Khannas, which included those by Aditya, his father Vipin and brother Arvind Khanna, who is a Congress MLA from Sangrur, the sources said.

The money that the ED was trying to trace related to events of five years ago and it would take some time to locate them from such huge transactions that had taken place over this period of time, the sources said.

The Income Tax would try and locate the money that is said to have been transferred from the London bank account of Khanna to his Parliament Street branch and its further disbursement.

Khanna is alleged to have received the payments fromMasefield, the company which got contracts in the oil-for-food scam from Iraq.

The ED investigating the Indian angle of Iraq's oil-for-food scam, as brought out by Volcker Committee, has questioned several people including Natwar, Jagat, Sehgal and Aneil Matherani, India's former envoy to Croatia, several times as part of their investigations.

The Enforcement Directorate recently got a shot in its arm when the Delhi High Court upheld the decision of the ED of revoking passports of various people, including Jagat Singh, son of Natwar Singh.

Besides the passport of Jagat, passport of Suman Sehgal, father of Andleep, prominent businessman Vijay Dhar, youth Congress leader Jameel Zaidi and one Asad Khan had been seized by the Enforcement Directorate earlier.