: The Director General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI) has raided three leading jewellers in Chennai in connection with evasion of central excise duties. These three firms have branches across India including Coimbatore, Thrissur, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai, and those premises were also searched by the officials.
A senior official from DGCEI told The Hindu , “The raids were conducted on December 27, 28 and 29 and are still going on. Consequent to demonetisation, we have been closely watching the jewellery sector.” The DGCEI carried out a preliminary verification of records of 48 jewellers in Tamil Nadu in the second week of November. “This survey was the beginning point. We then narrowed our searches to these three jewellers,” the officials said.
The department does not want to name the three jewellers till investigations are over. According to officials, the first firm that came under scrutiny has its corporate office in Thrissur. It had a turnover of ₹4,600 crore from March-November 2016 and has evaded duty to the tune of ₹40 crore. During the raid, it paid ₹12 crore and has agreed to pay the rest soon.
The second jeweller had a turnover of around ₹500 crore.
“The firm has collected central excise duty to the tune of ₹5 crore but had not deposited the same with the government. The duty liability will go up in this case,” the official said.
The third jeweller had allegedly evaded duty to the tune of ₹.14 crore.
