NEW DELHI: In a major haul, the Income Tax Department has seized assets to the tune of ₹390 crore, including cash amounting to ₹56 crore, from Maharashtra’s Jalna.
According to IT Department sources, the tax authorities carried out raids on a steel manufacturer, a cloth merchant, and a land developer in Jalna from August 1 to 8.
During the searches, the tax authorities seized around ₹390 crore of benami assets, including ₹56 crore in cash. The department also seized 32 kg of gold, pearls, diamonds, and property papers.
It is one of the biggest seizures by the tax authorities in Jalna, officials said.
Sources told The New Indian that it took them over 13 hours to count the cash with the help of several cash-counting machines.
The source said that the premises of SRJ Peety Steels and Kalika Steel Alloys Pvt Ltd were raided. A major land developer from Aurangabad was raided too, it added.
More than 290 tax officials were involved in the searches on the premises of the steel vendor, cloth merchant and land developer.
The source said that some scrap vendors in Jalna were also searched.
Incidentally, many people in Jalna were unaware of such a major action by the tax authorities in the city.
The photographs of the cash recovery showed many officials taking the help of the counting machine to count the cash and the bundles of cash stacked on the table.
Last month, the Enforcement Directorate carried out searches on several premises of Arpita Mukherjee, a close aide of arrested suspended Trinamool Congress leader and former state minister Partha Mukherjee, in Kolkata and seized cash to the tune of ₹50 crore.
Mukherjee and Chatterjee are currently in judicial custody in connection with the teachers’ recruitment scam.