The Income Tax department on Friday said that it has found unaccounted income of Rs 184 crore after its searches on October 7 at multiple premises of two real estate groups in Mumbai linked to the family of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.
Without explicitly naming Ajit Pawar or his relatives, the tax department said the evidence it gathered during raids on 70 premises spanning across Mumbai, Pune, Baramati, Goa and Jaipur pointed towards several prima-facie unaccounted and benami transactions. The department said suspiciously procured funds were used to buy properties at these places, besides making investments in a sugar mill.
The IT department on Friday had issued a statement saying “incriminating documents evidencing unaccounted income of about Rs 184 crore of the two groups have been found.”
“The search action has led to the identification of transactions by these business groups (builders) with a web of companies which, prima facie, appear to be suspicious. A preliminary analysis of the flow of funds indicates that there has been an introduction of unaccounted funds in the group by way of various dubious meth-ods like the introduction of bogus share premium, suspicious unsecured loans, receipt of unsubstantiated advance for certain services, collusive arbitration deals out of non-existent disputes. It has been observed that such a suspicious flow of funds has taken place with the involvement of an influential family of Maharashtra,” the IT department said in the statement.
Sources who are privy to details of IT raids told Times of India that they had noticed dubious transactions related to Ananta Merx Pvt Ltd, the company of Ajit Pawar’s son Parth, which was incorporated last year with its registered office address being Nirmal Building at Nariman Point. During the searches conducted on October 7, the agency had seized more than Rs 2.1 crore in unaccounted cash and jewellery worth Rs 4.3 crore.
Ajit Pawar says he is upset over involvement of his sisters in the IT raids
Earlier this month, the tax agency had raided a firm where Pawar’s Son, Parth is a director, along with a few firms owned by Pawar’s sisters, real estate firms linked to Pawar, and premises of directors of four sugar mills across the state that were allegedly linked to the Pawar family.
Pawar was then unflustered by the raids but was upset that his sisters were being involved in the searches. “Raids were carried out on my sisters’ houses. Jarandeshwar sugar factory directors have been raided. This is very low-level politics. Just because they are related to me, they are being harassed. Sharad Pawar was also troubled in a similar manner. I don’t know why these raids are being conducted,” he had said.
Ajit Pawar had further added, “my only grief is that they conducted raids on the premises related to my three sisters. One of them stays in Kolhapur and the other two in Pune.”
Ajit Pawar’s uncle and NCP supremo Sharad Pawar had also weighed in on the raids carried out by the Income Tax department. He had then accused the Centre of blatantly misusing central agencies to destabilise the Maha Vikas Aghadi government led by Uddhav Thackeray. “The Centre is employing the use of CBI, ED, NCB, and IT department to intimidate MVA leaders but now they have been pressed into service to target relatives of top leaders of the Congress, NCP and Shiv Sena,” he had said on Wednesday this week.
