Income Tax Department raids two business entities across Delhi, Punjab and West Bengal, recovers incriminating documents, digital evidence

New Delhi: The Income Tax Department on Tuesday (September 21, 2021) informed that it carried out a search and seizure operation on two business entities across Delhi, Punjab and West Bengal and recovered incriminating documents, digital evidence, among other things.

The first raid on September 18 was on a leading business house of India involved in the manufacture of textile and filament yarn having corporate offices in Delhi, Punjab and Kolkata. The government agency stated that the group has maintained unaccounted funds of about Rs 350 crore in its foreign bank accounts and has also routed these funds back into its business through shell entities in tax havens. 

"During the course of the search operation, many incriminating documents, loose sheets, diaries, digital evidence etc have been recovered which indicate involvement of the group in the routing of unaccounted funds back in its Indian entities, possession of foreign bank accounts unreported to the Department. Substantial evidence of transactions outside the books of accounts, cash transactions in land deals, bogus expenses debited in books of accounts, unaccounted cash expenditure, accommodation entries taken from entry operators have been gathered," the IT department said in a statement.

"Details of accounts related to unexplained personal expenditure in cash were found to be meticulously maintained in one of the main offices of the company. Evidence has been gathered that cash of about Rs 100 crore was generated by debiting bogus expenditure in company accounts and cash transactions in land deals," the statement added. 

The second raid was conducted on September 17 on a prominent group engaged in the manufacturing of steel products. 25 premises consisting of 8 residences, 9 offices and 8 factories, spread over Kolkata, Durgapur, Asansol and Purulia and other regions of West Bengal were covered in the operation.

The search operation, the government agency informed, has led to the detection of a huge quantity of incriminating documents and digital evidence from different premises. 

"Evidence pertain to the generation of unaccounted income by the group by way of unaccounted cash sales, unaccounted cash expenditure, purchase from bogus parties, under-reporting of actual production, cash purchases of scrap, several documents of land purchases and sale etc. Evidence has also been found pertaining to the utilisation of the unaccounted income in the form of unsecured loans and sale of shares of shell entities through the layering of the unaccounted income," it said. 

It added that a large number of property documents pertaining to one of the members of the group, showing land and property holding in different names, have also been seized. 

"The total amount of such incriminating evidence pertaining to the manufacturing group exceeds Rs 700 crore. The operation has led to the seizure of unaccounted cash amounting to Rs 20 lakh while 2 lockers remain to be operated," the Income Tax Department stated.

"Evidence of more than 200 companies/entities having more than 200 bank accounts being managed from the entry operator’s premises have been found. On the basis of preliminary examination of these documents, it appears that these bank accounts and entities have been used as a conduit to route the unaccounted income of many beneficiaries," it added.

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