Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan, against whom the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] has raised allegations of illegal financial dealings and tax evasion, said on Wednesday that the CPI(M) was welcome to conduct investigation by any agency, including a direct inquiry by the party, into his law firm’s tax payments and other financial dealings.
In the same vein, he challenged the CPI(M) to disclose the details of the tax payments since 2016 and other financial transactions made by Exalogica, the IT firm owned by Veena Vijayan, daughter of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
At a press conference here, Mr. Kuzhalnadan said the CPI(M) had attempted to put him in the dock for questioning Veena Vijayan’s “dubious” financial transactions with a Kochi-based mining firm.
He said that the CPI(M) had attempted to launch a personal attack on him by accusing the law firm that he was running along with three prominent lawyers of money laundering, a charge which was akin to sedition. By doing so, they had cast aspersions on his personal integrity as well as that of his colleagues, which he would not brook. He said that the law firm he was part of was the blood and sweat of his past 23 years as a practising lawyer, the value of which was something that those who threw allegations at him would not understand. Disclosing his firm’s IT payments since 2014-15, he said that he was paying personal income tax of over ₹5 lakh each for the past three years. His firm had foreign money coming in as income and every transaction was clearly documented.
Disclose details
Mr. Kuzhalnadan challenged the CPI(M) State secretariat, which had taken up the cause of Veena Vijayan and Exalogioca, to disclose all details of the financial dealings and tax payments of the firm.
“The party can even depute a member of its own, someone with a minimum integrity as T.M. Thomas Isaac, to investigate into my firm. They should also disclose their findings to the people,” Mr. Kuzhalnadan said.
As for the allegation that he had purchased property in Chinnakanal suppressing the original value in the title deed, Mr. Kuzhalnadan said that he had purchased the property a few months before the Assembly elections, when he had no idea that he would be considered as a candidate. When he filed the election affidavit, the entire registration documents of the property, which had three title deeds, were not ready. He had made voluntary declaration on the basis of one set of documents and he had shown the entire amount he had paid in the affidavit. It was his attempt to be transparent that seemed to have put him in the dock, he said. He said he had also paid stamp duty in excess of what the government had fixed as fair value of the land. He added that there was no illegal construction either because he had obtained NOC from the government for constructing a “guest house.”
