I-T raid on two major business groups

Taxmen prevented the mediapersons from entering the jurisdiction of their survey operations.

Staff Reporter :

Raipur,

After a prolong gap of over 5 months, sleuths from Income Tax Department’s Investigation Wing on Saturday noon mounted massive survey operations on over half-a-dozen premises of two major business groups, Avinash Developers Private Limited and Chandhok Cold Storage Private Limited of State capital. The concurrent surveys, which came as an unexpected turn of events given the Covid-19 scare in Chhattisgarh, particularly in the backdrop of massive spike in capital alone, many were caught off-guard with swift action of tax enforcers.

The whole operation was carried out so discreetly that no one got whiff about it till late Saturday evening hours. Most importantly, the taxmen strictly adhered to laid down safety protocols for Covid-19 as they were spotted wearing protective masks all throughout the operations. The surveys, according to well-placed sources, were carried out by tax sleuths of Chhattisgarh as part of the ‘reference enquiry’ generated by their Delhi-based counterparts, which found some massive discrepancies in one of their recently tax swoops. “The entire operation was overseen by Alok Johri, Principal Director (Investigation), Madhya Pradesh Chhattisgarh, whereas its real-time ground execution was undertaken by Joint Director (Investigation) Siddhartha Meena, who led six teams of 40 tax enforcers led by Assistant Directors (Investigation) Ashutosh Singh, Rahul Mishra, D S Meena, Sahja Nand and Pradeep Swarnkar respectively.

The operations simultaneously commenced at around 2.30 pm,” the sources affirmed. Sources further said, the surveys, enveloped two office premises of Avinash Developers Private Limited at Magneto-The Mall and Avinash House, Maruti Business Park, both situated on G E Road. Directors of Avinash Developers Private Limited are Anand Kumar Singhania and Mukesh Singhania. Similarly, four other premises covered during the operations were S P Cold Storage Private Limited in Khamtarai, Chandhok Cold Storage Private Limited in Rawabhata, Shagun Palace on VIP Road and Ishwar Ispat in Urla Industrial Area.

Earlier, Ishwar Ispat used to be known as G P Ispat until it was sold out to other businessman. Directors of Chandhok Cold Storage Private Limited are Pritpal Singh, Harvinder Singh, Gurpreet Singh and Tarveen Kaur Chandhok, the sources added. Sources averred that the tax watchdogs during the surveys at all the above locations retrieved back-up data of all the incriminating evidences stored on laptops and desktops, in addition to other forms of digital storage devices like pan-drives and external hard-disks. Most of these evidences pertained with stocks, business transaction details in cash and other forms. “The collected information would be further passed on to Delhi-based tax sleuths at whose instance the ‘reference enquiry’ was generated, which led to surveys on both the business groups,” the sources said, adding further, the operations were winded-up few minutes before the midnight.