The Income Tax Department’s Investigation Wing has tightened its scrutiny on Satyam Balajee Group, recovering around Rs 1.50 crore in unaccounted cash on the first day of a multi-state financial probe. The operation is being executed under the supervision of Additional Director of Income Tax (Investigation) Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh, Tarun Kanojia, with Conducting Deputy Director Naval Jain leading the field teams. The search and seizure operation, covering over 25 locations across Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh, has placed a massive corporate empire under investigation. Among the companies under the tax scanner are Satyam Balajee Rice Industries Private Limited, Satyam Balajee Automotives Private Limited, Satyam Balajee Energy Private Limited, Satyam Balajee Exim Private Limited, and Baldevji Enterprises LLP.

 

The key individuals at the centre of the probe include Oshin Agrawal, Purushottam Agarwalla, Pradeep Kumar Agarwal, Himanshu Ranjan Agrawal, Abhishek Ranjan Agrawal, and Kajli Agarwal, all of whom hold prominent positions in the group’s business empire. With nearly a dozen high-profile premises in Raipur alone enveloped, the tax enforcement action has engulfed plush residential bungalows, corporate offices, godowns, showrooms, and multiple commercial establishments linked to the group. The Bhanpuri Industrial Estate, Jawahar Market, Rajeev Nagar, Rathore Chowk, and Ring Road’s Jaguar showroom, among other locations, have been subjected to intensive scrutiny. Sources indicate that commission agents associated with the group have also come under the scanner, with multiple sites raided for possible cash dealings and unaccounted transactions.

 

“Preliminary findings suggest that large-scale cash transactions and financial irregularities in the group’s trade dealings may have triggered the high-stakes intervention. The officials are meticulously scrutinising financial ledgers, electronic records, and crucial transaction documents, to trace any potential business dealings or benami properties linked to the group,” the sources maintained. Parallel searches in Gondia (Maharashtra) have yielded incriminating documents related to bogus billing, suppressed turnovers, and profit misreporting. Officials have uncovered unaccounted transactions kept outside official records, hinting at large-scale tax evasion. Apart from the Rs 1.50 crore cash haul, tax teams are evaluating jewellery worth several crores with valuation underway by government-approved experts. Additionally, four bank lockers across nationalised and private banks in Raipur have been placed under Prohibitory Orders (POs), restricting access to suspected undisclosed financial holdings.

 

A dedicated cyber forensic team is cloning digital data from laptops, smartphones, iPhones, portable hard drives, and other electronic storage devices to uncover further financial trails. The data is being meticulously examined to detect hidden transactions, offshore linkages, and layered financial structures. The operation is being executed by a 150-member tax enforcement team, with officers drawn from Bhopal, Jabalpur, and Indore to assist in simultaneous searches. The Income Tax Investigation Wing in Chhattisgarh is also spearheading raids in Gondia and Kakinada, ensuring a comprehensive probe into financial discrepancies across state lines. “The search operations are expected to continue for another day or two as investigators pore over seized financial data and piece together the group’s extensive commercial network. Tax authorities are also expected to summon key individuals for questioning, following which further legal proceedings will be initiated based on the depth of financial discrepancies unearthed during the probe,” a taxmen privy to ongoing search-ops findings, averred to The Hitavada.