Rs 1.82cr cash, jewellery seized from catering, pandal service groups

New Delhi [India], May 8 (ANI): The Income Tax (IT) department on Tuesday seized approximately Rs.1.82 crore in cash and jewellery worth Rs 2.49 crore during raids conducted at multiple locations of companies of the hospitality sector.

Sources told ANI that raids were conducted at 43 locations of three groups engaged in catering and marquee or pandal services, wherein more than 15 lockers were under prohibitory orders, and total quantum of undisclosed income exceeding Rs.100 crore.

On May 3, the I-T department's Delhi Investigation Directorate had initiated searches and surveys in cases of three major groups in the aforementioned category under Section 132 and 133A of the Income-Tax Act, 1961. The raids revealed that the searches persons have been evading huge amounts of taxes over the years mainly by underreporting the sales/service charges received.

As per the source, the modus operandi included not reporting most of the cash dealings, with 100 percent extent of evasion in some cases. It was also stated that some of the entities involved had claimed bogus expenses in the form of purchases shown from some shell entities.

The search teams also detected a plethora of documents showing undisclosed cash receipts and mobile messages showing particulars of such transactions, all of which were seized by the I-T department officials for interrogation.

Further investigation into the matter is underway. (ANI)

This story has not been edited. It has been published as provided by ANI