The Income Tax Department said on Tuesday that it has found evidence of unaccounted transactions and investments worth over Rs 100 crore during its raids last week on properties linked to two Congress MLAs in Jharkhand and their alleged associates and businesses, reported PTI.
The raids at properties linked to Kumar Jaimangal and Pradip Yadav were conducted on November 4. The Congress had alleged that the searches were a part of the operation to destabilise governments in non-Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states.
The raids came at a time when the Enforcement Directorate is conducting an inquiry against Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren in a money-laundering investigation related to an alleged mining scam in the state. The Congress is a coalition partner in the ruling government.
On Tuesday, the Central Board of Direct Taxes, the policy-making body of the Income Tax Department, said in a statement that it had condcuted raids on 50 premises in Ranchi, Godda, Bermo, Dumka, Jamshedpur and Chaibasa in Jharkhand, Patna in Bihar, Gurugram in Haryana, and Kolkata in West Bengal.
The statement said that the action had been taken against “business groups engaged in coal trading/transportation, execution of civil contracts, extraction of iron ore and production of sponge iron”.
It said that more than Rs 2 crore in cash and a large number of incriminating material has been seized. Preliminary analysis has indicated that the business groups evaded tax through various means.
“It has been found that investments have been made in immovable properties, the source of which could not be fully explained,” the CBDT statement noted.
The tax department also claimed that the businesses involved in civil contracts were not maintaining regular books of account and that evidence suggest “unfair payments in cash” were made to secure the contracts.
In August, Jaimangal, had lodged a police complaint against three Congress legislators – Irfan Ansari, Rajesh Kachchap and Naman Bixal Kongari – alleging that they were plotting to overthrow the Jharkhand government by joining hands with BJP.
He had claimed that the three MLAs had called him to Kolkata to meet Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sama, who was allegedly going to give Jaimangal a ministerial berth in the new government.
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