While Income Tax Department officials were probing the mysterious case of bags filled with ₹3.9 crore in cash, jewellery and gold biscuits, a visibly shaken Avinash Amaralal Kukreja, 46, walked into the chamber of H.S. Srikanth, honorary secretary of Bowring Institute, on Friday evening with a proposal. “He was in shock and pleaded with me to return only the files. He offered me the option of keeping the stash of cash and diamonds in return,” Mr. Srikanth said at a press conference on Saturday.
Mr. Kukreja, a financier in the city’s real estate sector, was later handed over to I-T sleuths, but it did not end there.
“On Friday, around 9 p.m., an unidentified person entered my office and asked me to give him just one particular file for which he would pay me ₹5 crore. I again alerted I-T sleuths, but he had left by then,” said the honorary secretary.
The fact that two people were willing to part with crores of rupees for the documents has not only caught the interest of the I-T Department, but also led to speculation among builders and businessmen in the sector.
Sources said 12 files recovered from the lockers have land documents, several signed blank cheques, undated cheques for ₹50 crore, ₹30 crore, and the like.
“The land documents pertain to several properties of some builders in the city, including several land parcels at Devanahalli,” Mr. Srikanth said.
Insiders in the real estate sector of the city suspected the documents and the cheques mostly belonged to other prominent builders who may have approached Mr. Kukreja for financial backing. I-T officials, however, refused to comment on the documents or divulge any information, but said they were still conducting the probe.
While refusing to comment on this particular case or the nature of Mr. Kukreja’s business, a prominent real estate businessman pointed out that builders often turn to financiers for loans at high rates of interest.
“Several such loans were taken after the recession in 2008 when real estate firms were in the red,” an insider in the real estate sector said.
