Amritsar, June 16: In simultaneous raids at 30-odd premises of four business groups based in Amritsar, and at other places in the city over two days, sleuths of the income tax department have recovered Rs 12 crore in unaccounted cash and jewellery.
An official said documents recovered from 15 lockers had given the department evidence that the businesses were making cash investments in real estate, using black money.
“The documents pertain to ‘outside the books’ transactions with records of cash changing hands for benami properties,” the official said, adding financial irregularities to the tune of crores of rupees have been detected.
The groups raided were Gopi Krishna Group of Naresh Aggarwal which is into textile processing; Khurana Group of Narinder Khurana and Amit Khurana that deals in coal; Chopra Group of Nitin Chopra and Miku Chopra and Veer Colonisers Group of Subhash Sharma.
An official with the I-T added that the surprise checks had uncovered a number of illegalities including huge benami properties, unaccounted manufacturing and sale, suppression of profit, unaccounted cash purchases and sales and unaccounted investment in real estate. Black money was also generated and groups also indulged in illegal coal mining. The official added that Veer Colonisers had invested crores into a Special Economic Zone.
“Real estate agents, Nitin Chopra and Miku Chopra of the Chopra Group, have allegedly been indulging in false IT returns, executing shady deals with huge unaccounted properties and dealing in just cash transactions,” the official went on to add.
The department had also raided tainted patwari Nirmal Singh Bajwa, aka Nimma, who had been arrested by the vigilance department in April 2002 for amassing property worth crores of rupees, even as he drew a salary of Rs 7,000 a month.
Source Hindustan Times
