I-T swoop in CG

 

 

 

Barely 24 hours had passed after Chhattisgarh witnessed the first phase of assembly elections in 20 assembly constituency seats, the Income Tax Department’s Investigation Wing on early Wednesday mounted multi-location search and seizure operations at 14 places in Raipur, Durg and Balod districts. Another search-ops now under way in Bhopal is partly learnt to be related with the fresh swoop in Chhattisgarh. This time, the taxmen swoop has covered Dev Mining Company – an internationally certified company with its Raipur-based registered corporate office – specialised in mining services provider, mining development, blast holes, drilling, blasting, excavation, transportation and production. Additionally, the tax enforcers also enveloped two major fireworks suppliers of Durg district based at Link Road Camp-2 and Jamul area of Bhilai respectively. Those covered by visiting taxmen include M/s Dhingani Fireworks as well as M/s Hukumchand and Himmatchand Fireworks. The owners of these entities are alleged to be closely linked with some certain politicians in the poll-bound Chhattisgarh.

 

“The searches are being carried out based on credible intelligence that all the three entities have evaded massive tax liability under the garb of filing bogus expenditure transactions and its worth crores. The ongoing investigation would help to ascertain the trail of unaccounted money and as well as track the individuals as to who, whom and how it helped. Rummaging of loose papers and other digital evidences are underway right now, sans any seizure on the day one of operations,” a senior I-T official taking part in the operations confided to The Hitavada requesting anonymity. In all, according to this official, around 100 tax sleuths, reinforced by 40 armed troopers of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), were engaged in search and seizure operations at over dozen places in Bhilai, Dallirajhara, Jamul and Raipur. Out of 14 premises covered, two each are residential in Raipur and Bhilai, whereas the remaining are business and godowns of Dev Mining Company, M/s Dhingani Fireworks as well as M/s Hukumchand and Himmatchand Gehlot Fireworks. ”The tax sleuths were looking into digital and paper trails of various incriminating financial transactions undertaken by the managing partners, partners and owners of the three business entities in the recent past, particularly in the background of the ongoing assembly elections in Chhattisgarh.

 

Knowledgeable sources, in the meantime, affirmed that the searches being conducted under Section 132 of Income Tax Act were being spearheaded by two senior Indian Revenue Service (IRS) cadre officials namely Gagan Giri Goswami and Naval Jain, both Deputy Directors (Investigation) respectively, while Principal Director of Income Tax (Investigation) Sunil Kumar Singh and Additional Director of Income Tax (Investigation) Rituparn Namdeo overseeing the entire proceedings. Moreover, taxmen from Kolkata were also roped in for the searches owing to manpower crunch,” the official sources maintained. While the officials taking part in the operation refused to divulge the details of findings of the concurrent search operations, which commenced on early Wednesday morning at around 5.45 am, senior officials pointed out that the searches will continue for another day or two. Earlier on Tuesday, the day of first phase of polling on November 7 in Chhattisgarh, the Income Tax Department had also conducted searches at over 45 locations of prominent alcohol beverage maker and distributor Som Group for alleged tax evasion, ‘benami’ directors in the group companies and infusion of foreign funds. The tax enforcers were still busy in searching the premises of Som Distilleries and Breweries in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mumbai, Delhi and Karnataka including the promoter Jagdish Arora residences for tax evasion and infusion of foreign funds into the group. The I-T sleuths were probing alleged ‘benami’ directors in the group companies to divert funds and evade taxes.