Jalandhar, Dec 29: The investigation wing of the Income Tax Department (Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir) on Thursday carried out searches in over 15 places of a Jalandhar-based business group having diversified interests in real estate and hospitality sectors in the state.
Income tax sleuths camouflaged the whole search operation by posing as members of a political party.
They hired private taxis from Haryana and installed party banners and flags on them. The operation that began yesterday ended this evening. The search operation led by Additional Director (Income Tax) Ritesh Parmar had over 15 teams.
Besides conducting searches at “Bath Castle” in Jalandhar, Nakodar and Ludhiana, the teams also raided the cold storage owned by the group at Nakodar and their ancestral home situated in Bath Kalan village.
Besides finding incriminating documents, including undocumented cash receipts and over dozens of lockers having cash and valuables, the search teams also found a two-seater aircraft parked in the ancestral home.
“As the aircraft is more than seven-year old and not in use anymore, we cannot assess its tax liability. However, the group was doing under billing in the marriage palace bookings. We have recovered original receipts from the spot,” claimed an official.
The searches conducted on the premises of Bath and Uppal Group were planned after the name of Pavitar Singh Uppal figured in the list of Paradise Papers, a set of 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments leaked by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in November last year.
Uppals and Bath besides being business partners also have family ties as Pavitar Singh Uppal is the brother-in-law of Narinder Bath. They jointly own marriage palaces, hotels and cold storages and have also diversified in the real estate sector.
The family members were not available for comment.
News Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com
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