The Income Tax Department seized ₹14.48 crore in cash during raids at multiple locations, including in poll-bound Karnataka, in the wake of the recent cash crunch in the country, officials said on Thursday.
They said the department raided a number of entities that were found to be hoarding cash in various States.
“The total cash seized in these searches is ₹14.48 crore and the seized currency is largely in the higher denominations of ₹2,000 and ₹500,” a senior official said.
The officials cited some instances in this context. Searches were carried out against “prominent” PWD contractors in poll-bound Karnataka, who were awarded contracts during January-March this year, they said.
The searches carried out last week led to the unearthing and seizure of ₹6.76 crore in cash, mainly from the benami lockers detected during the operations, they said. Over a dozen contractors in Mysore and Bengaluru were covered as part of the action, they said.
Books of accounts not maintained
Some of the searched assessees were found to be not maintaining the books of accounts, they said.
The ₹6.76 crore seized last week took the total amount of seizure in the poll-abound State since the announcement of election schedule to ₹10.62 crore. The taxman has also seized jewellery worth ₹1.33 crore from the State.
In the Hyderabad region, the raids were conducted by the department on two realtors that led to a seizure of ₹5.10 crore of “unaccounted cash” in the high value denominations, they said.
In a similar action in Punjab’s Khanna district, a group engaged in manufacture and sale of cattle feed was searched and it led to the seizure of cash amounting to ₹2.62 crore along with jewellery and bullion of ₹66.49 lakh, the officials said.
The group was making purchases and sales outside the books in cash and was showing a very low profit ratio and five lockers of the group were under the attachment ordered by the tax authority, they said.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) recently asked the investigation wings of the I-T Department to check the cash crunch crisis after many ATMs across the country went dry.
