5000 people with big deposits under scanner in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh
Hyderabad: Income Tax sleuths have identified more than 5,000 persons in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh who deposited demonetised currency in lakhs and crores of rupees. So far, the I-T department has conducted about 12 searches after demonetisation and now plans to step up raids by deputing additional staff from other wings of the department apart from taking assistance of other departments.
An official source said that they have received information on those who deposited large sums of money while tracking records of I-T returns through PAN cards were poor. “We need more teams for holding searches, surveys and raids. We have deputed sufficient staff from other wings like ministerial and admin and trained them for raids. We’ll conduct raids soon in connection with all the suspect deposits at banks,” the official said.
Besides this, the I-T department is also taking the assistance of forensic experts and data analysis experts. “We seek the source of income from the depositors in initial stage and during our searches, we estimate the capacity of the depositor whether he is having that much of earning capabilities or he is a benami to any other black money holder. In the last 50 days, we have seized about Rs 11 crore during raids and Rs 280 crore of unexplained amount,” the official said.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is monitoring the deposits through PAN and Aadhaar details and passing the information of suspicious cases to Telangana and AP officials for taking necessary action. Another source said that majority of identified depositors have deposited money in lakhs and crores in various bank accounts. "Few are having two or more bank accounts. All these cases are related to the deposits of demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency denominations. Majority of deposits are identified in Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam districts,” the source said.
Besides monitoring large quantity of suspicious deposits, I-T is also looking at banks where irregular currency exchange was taken place. So far I-T has identified a few banks in General Bazaar in Secunderabad, Begum Bazaar, Tolichowki, Somajiguda, Habsiguda and Old City. The source said that I-T was coordinating with Enforcement Directorate and Central Bureau of Investigation on such cases.
