IT Deptt unearths Rs 10,000 cr unreported financial transactions across Vidarbha

 

 

 The raids conducted by the Income Tax (IT) Department at 16 Sub-Registrar Offices (SROs) and three co-operative banks across Vidarbha region have detected unreported property and financial transactions worth over Rs 10,000 crore in the past five years. These unreported transactions have caused loss of crores of rupees to the State exchequer in terms of Income Tax. An IT official said that the first survey at the Hingna Sub-Registrar Office (SRO) by IT officials blew the lid off the scam which unearthed that how the officials at SROs are hiding the property transactions worth crores of rupees and causing losses to the state exchequer. It emerged as the prototype for one of Vidarbha’s most expansive tax compliance crackdowns, the official said. The IT Department’s Intelligence and Criminal Investigation Wing (ICIW) officials claimed that they unearthed unreported transactions worth over Rs 10,000 crore through the Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) portal. The official also described the findings as a case of ‘structural concealment’, which have revealed entrenched channels of undeclared wealth spanning the real estate, cooperative banking, and healthcare sectors. the SFT mechanism at the centre of the investigation. This has made the Hingna case the reference model for a wider series of coordinated surveys at SROs across Vidarbha region. Following these developments, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) ordered a comprehensive audit of all 21 Sub-Registrar Offices in Nagpur district. ICIW data indicates that unreported transactions amounting to Rs 3,000 crore were detected in Khamla SRO and Rs 1,500 crore in Civil Lines SRO, while other nodes such as Sadar SRO, Mhalgi Nagar SRO, and Sakkardara SRO reflected similar patterns. The investigation has since expanded across the Vidarbha region, including Wardha SRO, Arvi SRO, and Buldhana SRO. 

 

 

 

The ICIW conducted raids on three cooperative banks by replicating the analytical framework used in the Hingna SRO survey. Two of those banks in Nagpur, and one in Buldhana, Rs 1,500 crore in unreported deposits accumulated over the past five years. The department has also issued notices to around 130 hospitals, fertility centres, and diagnostic laboratories over suspected cash suppression during the previous fiscal year. Officials believe that several healthcare institutions exhibit financial patterns consistent with those identified in the property and banking audits. Building upon these findings, the department now intends to extend its scrutiny to hotels, jewellery houses, and event management firms, as there sectors are widely regarded as high-risk for cash-intensive underreporting.

 

 

The investigation was initiated in July when ICIW teams cross-matched property data from iSarita with mandatory SFT filings. iSarita is a digital platform used by sub-registrars across the state for property registration and documentation. A SFT is a report that certain financial institutions are required to furnish to the IT Department to monitor high-value financial activity and deter tax evasion. The official informed that the probe revealed that more than 600 high-value property transactions collectivelly worth nearly Rs 800 crore were never reported, despite qualifying under the Rs 30 lakh disclosure threshold. The official claimed that the officials at the Hingna SRO had manually filtered out hundreds of eligible transactions. They selectively uploaded records to circumvent reporting norms. This manipulation has placed