New Delhi: Unaccounted cash of Rs 351 crore and jewellery worth more than Rs 2.80 crore were seized after the Income Tax department conducted searches against an Odisha-based distillery group and its promoters, the CBDT said on Thursday. The business of the group is "controlled" by a family based in Ranchi in Jharkhand and one of the family members is a "politically exposed person", the Board said in a statement, without taking any name.
Official sources confirmed that the action was linked to the December 6 searches launched at more than 30 premises in 10 districts of Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal against Boudh Distillery Pvt. Ltd. (BDPL), promoted by the family of Congress Rajya Sabha MP Dhiraj Prasad Sahu. Sahu's family house in Ranchi was also raided by the tax department during the 10-day-long search.
Some recent press reports quoted Sahu, 64, as saying that the cash had nothing to do with the Congress party and that he would give an account of everything. "Preliminary analysis of seized evidence reveals records of unaccounted sales of country liquor, systematic details of undisclosed cash receipts and references for movement of unaccounted cash.
"The facts unearthed during the search operation indicate that the group has been indulging in huge suppression of income earned from the liquor business," the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said. It said "undisclosed" cash amounting to more than Rs 351 crore and unaccounted jewellery exceeding Rs 2.80 crore was seized by the department.
"A substantial part of the cash, to the tune of Rs 329 crore, was unearthed and seized from obscure and dilapidated buildings, hidden chambers and hidden safe-house camouflaged as an unoccupied/nondescript residence located in small towns of Odisha including Sudapada and Titlagarh in Bolangir District and Khetrajpur in Sambalpur district," the statement said. This cash haul has been the highest-ever seizure of currency by an agency in a single operation, officials earlier told PTI.
The CBDT, which frames policy for the I-T department, also shared pictures of wads of currency stashed in almirahs and a battery of currency machines being used to count the cash along with the press statement. The main employees looking after the business activities of the group "admitted" that the cash seized during the search operation represents the "unaccounted" income of the group, generated through its multiple business concerns, the Board claimed.
This was also "corroborated" by one of the family members who is actively involved in the business, it said. The CBDT said the business group is engaged in the business of manufacture and sale of country liquor, grain-based alcohol, bottling of foreign liquor, running hospitals and educational institutions. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about the searches on December 8, noting the money looted from the public will be returned as he posted a Hindi newspaper report where the cash recovered by the I-T department was shown stacked.
Taking to X, he had said, "The countrymen should look at the pile of these notes and then listen to the honest speeches of their leaders.... Whatever has been looted from the public, every penny will have to be returned, this is Modi's guarantee."The Congress has distanced itself from the MP, claiming that the party has nothing to do with his businesses.
