New Delhi: The Finance Ministry may independently scrutinize any tax violations by the 125 Indian companies named in the Volcker committee report for allegedly bribing the Saddam Hussein government to get contracts under the Oil-for-Food programme.
"There is no formal probe but we will look into the tax returns of the companies to see whether there have been any violations," a top Finance Ministry official said.
This will be independent of the judicial probe by 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 Paul Volcker," the official said, adding that there may be an examination of the tax returns of the companies.
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 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.
These include 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 that allegedly made illegal payments of $1.8 billion to the then Saddam Government.
DaimlerChrysler, Volvo and Siemens also figure in the list.
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