Black money crackdown: Excise officials seek details of gold sales from over 600 jewellers

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Excise officials searched for details of gold sales from over 600 jewellers pan India on Friday.

As per reports, the operation was carried out in 25 cities.

Notices have been sent to these jewellers seeking details of the sales made of yellow metal in the last four days, starting November 7, by the officials of Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI), an intelligence arm under the Finance Ministry,

Major jewellery stores and their manufacturing units will be visited by the officials as part of the operation, PTI reported.

The jewellery stores have been asked to provide details of the stock quantity in their possession and the sales made during the last four days.

Jewellers in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Vijaywada, Nashik and Lucknow are initially under the scrutiny of the DGCEI officials, they said, adding that this exercise can later be extended to other cities too.

The move comes after Finance Ministry directed the jewellers to sell gold and ornaments made from it only against customers' PAN details.

"The person who buys jewellery has to give his PAN number. We are issuing instructions to the field authorities to check with all the jewellers to ensure that this requirement is not compromised. Action will be taken against those jewellers who fail to take PAN numbers from such buyers.

"When the cash deposits of the jewellers would be scrutinised against the sales made, whether they have taken the PAN number of the buyer or not will also be checked," Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia had said.

On Thursday too, the Income Tax department had conducted multiple surveys in Delhi, Mumbai, and other cities.

Interestingly, the operations (surveys) were launched from the evening yesterday as the taxman wanted some hard cash to get accumulated at the payment counters to make the action effective.

The operations were carried out at least at four locations in the national capital including popular marketplaces like Karol Bagh, Dariba Kalan, and Chandni Chowk, three locations in Mumbai and few others in Chandigarh and Ludhiana.

Sources said the department had received "actionable inputs" that some traders, jewellers, currency exchanges and hawala dealers were allegedly exploiting the recent currency demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and were changing currencies at "discounted" prices, thereby profiteering illegally.

They said the operations were planned after Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chairman Sushil Chandra yesterday asked all the investigation units in the country to keep a check on the suspicious movement of huge cash and other illegal transactions leading to tax evasion.

Officials added that almost over 100 tax sleuths along with police officials had been roped in for the survey operations.

At few places, they said, some preliminary documents were seized.

(With PTI inputs)