The Income Tax department will probe the source of funding and ownership of the money for the garland made of currency notes presented to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati at a rally in Lucknow.

The department will check the source of the money estimated to be between Rs 10 to Rs 20 crore, sources said.

The probe will be carried out by the IT department in Lucknow as the venue of the function where Mayawati was presented the garland falls under the jurisdiction of the said directorate.

Sources said the I-T department will probe the origin of the Rs 1,000 notes, the bank they have been sourced from and the bank account holder/holder's identity.

The department has also asked its intelligence wing to gather information in this regard including the funding of the entire event that took place to celebrate Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP) anniversary.

The course of action, which may include undertaking search and survey operations, will be decided once the department gets preliminary information, they said.

The IT department will also probe the genuineness of the currency notes which could be seized for that, they said.

Maya's hard cash garland has MPs screaming for probe

For the second successive day, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati came under attack in the Lok Sabha today with members of Samajwadi Party and Congress raising questions over her lavish rally and demanding a probe into the source of the "multi-crore" garland presented to her.

The SP and Congress members created ruckus since noon, forcing two adjournments till 2 pm. When similar scenes were witnessed again, Deputy Speaker Karia Munda adjourned the House for recess till April 12, hours before the scheduled adjournment.

As soon as the Question Hour ended at noon, SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and some of his party colleagues wanted to raise the issue of BSP's lavish rally in Lucknow yesterday where Mayawati was presented a garland made of currency notes in the denomination of Rs 1,000.

Speaker Meira Kumar disallowed them from speaking, saying the matters of Zero Hour should be taken up.

This agitated the SP members, who along with Congress' Jagdambika Pal, were on their feet and criticised Mayawati.

In the din, they were heard saying that the garland was estimated to be worth Rs 10 crore to Rs 15 crore and demanded a probe to ascertain where the money came from.

In view of the uproar, the Speaker adjourned the House till 1300 hours. When it re-assembled, similar scenes were witnessed, forcing Munda to adjourn the House till 2 pm.

Pandemonium was repeated when the House met again and after about 15 minutes, it was adjourned for recess.

Earlier, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal and his deputy V Narayanasamy were seen holding parleys with Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj and JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav, apparently to discuss premature adjournment of the House.

At one point, Swaraj told the Chair that since passage of a bill was pending, the members of all parties could be given some time before the House completes the day's business to raise issues regarding the BSP rally and the garland presented to Mayawati.

As pandemonium continued, the House took up the listed legislative business and Munda called out Sandeep Dikshit (Congress) to speak on the National Green Tribunal Bill, but his address was drowned in the din.

The debate on the bill started yesterday but remained inconclusive. It would now be taken after the recess.

Earlier, during the Zero Hour, Pal said Mayawati's acceptance of the garland was a violation of the model code of conduct as the source of the money was not known.

"The country's money is the national currency. The way these Rs 1,000 notes were made into a garland is a crime," he said.

The issue of lavish celebrations of BSP's 25th founding day found its echo in Lok Sabha yesterday also when the SP chief accused Mayawati of spending Rs 200 crore on the rally when Bareilly was engulfed in communal fire.

Yadav was joined by party colleagues along with Pal in alleging that Mayawati was celebrating while Bareilly was burning in communal fire.