Kerala GST dept rejects RTI query on Veena Vijayan's IT firm

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 19 (IANS) The Kerala government's GST department on Thursday refused to answer an RTI query whether IT firm Exalogic -- owned by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena Vijayan -- has paid GST on a payment received for rendering services to a Kochi-based mining company.

For the past few months, the issue has been raging both inside and outside the Assembly after a media report, quoting an Income Tax department official, claimed that Veena’s firm had received Rs 1.72 crore from CMRL - a mining company.

Trouble started for Vijayan when the issue was taken up by first-time Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnaden.

He questioned if Veena Vijayan had received the money as alms as neither she nor her company did any work for CMRL at all. The Congress leader further pointed out that it's not just from one company but her firm had collected money from other firms as well.

Kuzhalnaden then handed over a letter to State Finance Minister K.N.Balagopal regarding this and asked him to take a look into the GST payments made by her IT firm.

Based on this letter, an RTI query was raised to which the answer was denied terming it "personal" details.

Kuzhalanaden reacted by terming the denial "strange" and "totally" wrong.

"After this issue surfaced, all the departments have only one agenda and that's to cover up the 'wrong doings' of a particular family. But this will not continue for long as soon the skeletons will tumble out of the cupboard," said Kuzhalnaden.