I-T Deptt unearths unaccounted transactions to the tune of Rs 250 crore in Chhattisgarh

 

 

 

Income Tax Department’s Investigation Wing on Thursday claimed to have unearthed a mind-boggling unaccounted transaction worth over Rs 250 crore following 34 hours long search and seizure operations on 35 premises of Chhattisgarh’s two major coal and steel groups, Sky Alloys and Power Private Limited and Indus Udyog & Infrastructure Private Limited. The sources, however, maintained that scale of unaccounted transaction in Chhattisgarh is still very high in comparison to other States and thus Income Tax Department is ramping up to mount a series of such swoops across State.

 

The operations which were still under way at remaining 32 premises, fanned across Raipur, Raigarh, Korba, Durg and Bilaspur districts, also led to many sensational disclosures, which have even baffled the tax enforcers, even as the other day they had maintained that the swoop was heading in right course of direction. Moreover, the ongoing searches have also brought under its radar all the commission agents and accountants associated with the Sky Alloys Group. On the day two of ops, the taxmen found unaccounted cash to the tune of Rs 2.25 crore and gold valuables worth over Rs 3.10 crore from 24 different premises of Sky Alloys and Power Private Limited wherein one of these premises alone contributed for unaccounted cash of over Rs 1 crore. M/s Prachi Enterprises, one of the inter-linked business associates of Sky Alloys Group, owned by Amit Agrawal and Sumit Agrawal - dealing in coal supply and logistic support - has also been enveloped in the search.

 

“Of the 24 locations of Sky Alloys group covered by the taxmen comprise of 11 residential and 13 business/office premises, which also included one factory at village Tetantema village in Kharsia Tehsil of Raigarh district. As far as bifurcation is concerned, 18 office premises are situated in Raipur while remaining in Raigarh. M/s Prachi Enterprises alone used to operate four ‘undisclosed office’ premises in Raipur, which were being used as ‘front’ to maintain parallel book of accounts for the Sky Alloys Groups. Earlier Prachi Enterprises used to operate from Bilaspur, but they shifted their operations to Raipur few years ago,” one of the highly-placed sources in the Income Tax Department’s Investigation Wing (Chhattisgarh-Madhya Pradesh) told ‘The Hitavada’ requesting anonymity. According to the sources, the search operations on Sky Alloys group helped the tax investigators to lay their hands on heaps of incriminating evidences of unaccounted transactions worth over Rs 200 crore.

 

These evidences were in the form of loose papers, in addition to digital financial trails including data available on the various forms of digital storage devices such as laptops, desktops and hard drives, all pertaining with the unaccounted sales and purchase. “Hefty unaccounted sale and purchase transactions have been found for coal and steel industries across Chhattisgarh, primarily from Bilaspur and Korba,” the sources asserted. Sources further said that solid evidences indicating massive tax evasion done by the Sky Alloys Group are in the possession of taxmen, which are suffice for them continue their uninterrupted search operations on all the 24 premises for another 48 hours. On the other hand, as per the sources, tax sleuths have winded up their search operations from 3 out of 10 premises of Indus Udyog & Infrastructure Private Limited in Korba and Raipur whereas remaining 7 premises were still swarming with the presence of tax sleuths. “So far, the tax watchdogs have dug out unaccounted transaction to the worth of over Rs 50 crore,” the sources added.