New Delhi, Sept 10: CBI today questioned Union Minister of State for Textiles Gingee Ramachandran in connection with the cash-for-transfer scam that came to light in May this year. The questioning of Ramachandran comes barely two days after he took over as Minister of State for Textiles.

He was the Minister of State for Finance when the scam broke out in which his personal assistant R Perumalswamy and his Chennai-based chartered accountant A Krishnamurthy were arrested by the CBI for allegedly fixing the transfer of an IRS officer Anurag Vardhan for Mumbai. Gingee was asked about the procedure of transfers in the Finance Ministry and about the allegations that he had been influencing the CBDT members for fixing transfers of IRS officers.

He was questioned at his residence by the sleuths of anti-corruption wing of the agency after getting certain leads from the office of Krishnamurthy.

The case came to light on May 22 this year when Perumalswamy was arrested by the CBI from the residence of Vardhan in South Delhi alongwith Rs four lakh of cash as bribe. The government had put on hold the transfer of 54 senior income tax officials on the same day as a fall out of the scam.

Vardhan, an Indian Revenue Service officer of 1994 batch, had approached A Krishnamurthy, the Chennai-based chartered accountant and alleged middleman, for his transfer to Mumbai.

The deal was fixed for Rs five lakh and subsequently the IRS officer was asked to pay Rs four lakh to a "tout" who later turned out to be Perumalswamy. The bribe amount was paid to the personal assistant as the transfer order for Vardhan to Mumbai had been ordered on May 21.

Bureau Report