Cash, wades of cash and more cash. It’s as if Congress MP Dhiraj Sahu has hit a secret lottery whose source no one knows. It is being called the highest cash haul of all time.
On 7th December, the Income Tax Department conducted raids at Boudh Distilleries Private Limited (BDPL) in Odisha and Jharkhand. The firm is reportedly linked to Congress Rajya Sabha MP Dhiraj Sahu.
A total of Rs 454 crore cash has been seized in the raids conducted by the Income Tax Department across multiple locations. Trucks were called in to carry the heaps of cash to the bank. Cash-counting machines malfunctioned owing to the overload of cash.
Besides the cash, 60 gold, ornaments and biscuits has also been seized. The 4-day long marathon cash seizure concluded on Monday (11th December) morning.
More than half a dozen companies have been raided by the agency including S Shiw Ganga and Company and Ranisati Paddy Procession Private Limited on suspicion of tax evasion.
Raids were also carried out at the residences of two prominent liquor entrepreneurs, Deepak Sahu and Sanjay Sahu, in Titilagarh, Odisha.
In Bolangir, the liquor making units (bhattis) of Baldeo Sahu & Group of Companies and their offices were raided by dozens of I-T sleuths with CISF personnel.
Dhiraj Prasad Sahu is a partner in Baldev Sahu Infra Pvt Ltd, a group company of Budha Distilleries. He has been a Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand since 2009. Sahu’s family has been linked to Congress for a long time.
Sahu is a Rahul Gandhi loyalist. In November 2022, he participated in Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Later, in February 2023, Sahu published a video from the Yatra and wrote, “Historic Bharat Jodo Yatra ended up winning the hearts of Indians. Honoured to be a part of this historic journey.”
Meanwhile, the Congress has distanced itself from the leader and has demanded an explanation from him.
Ironically, during the raids, an old post of the Congress leader did the rounds on social media wherein he was critical of the demonetisation.
PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have both hit out at the Congres. The PM in a post on X said that every penny will have to be returned, this is Modi’s guarantee.
Dhiraj Sahu has broken the records of the likes of Piyush Jain, the Kanpur-based perfume merchant raided by the DGGI and IT Dept.
In December 2021, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) had unearthed more than Rs 196 crore and 23 kg of foreign gold at his premises in Kannauj and Kanpur over a four-day long raid.
600 litres of sandalwood oil was also recovered. Of the total amount, Rs 19 crore cash was recovered from his Kannauj residence and Rs 177.45 crore cash was recovered from his house in Kanpur.
DGGI and IT authorities had to take the help of SBI for machines and manpower to count mounains of Rs 500 and Rs 200 notes.
In February 2022 in Jharkhand, ED recovered crores of rupees in cash from the residence of the CA of IAS Pooja Singhal, who is considered a close aide of CM Hemant Soren.
Rs 25 crore were seized in raids which spread to the New Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Faridabad, Gurugram, Muzaffarpur, Ranchi, and other cities. Singhal is accused of misappropriation of MGNREGA funds along with other shady financial activities in the Khunti region. The MGNREGA scam case amounts to about Rs 18.8 crore in Khunti and irregularities in Chatra amount to Rs 6 crore in Jharkhand.
In 2022, the Enforcement Directorate seized cash amounting to over Rs 50 crores and Rs 4.31 crore worth of gold from locations linked to Arpita Mukherjee, a close associate of former Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee in the Bengal SSC recruitment scam.
As per reports, stacks of cash began to flow out when the central agency broke open the cupboard inside Mukherjee’s bedroom. Cash was also hidden in a loft over the attached washroom.
Besides the cash, gold bars, jewellery, luxury cars, diamond rings and property papers were also recovered by the ED.
The extent of the scam is so big that a fresh recovery has been made as recently as last week this time by the CBI. Rs 34 lakh cash and 1.2 kg gold was seized by the agency from the residence of TMC MLA Jafikul Islam.
In Hyderabad in 2021, the IT conducted raids at the premises of a pharma company named Hetero pharmaceutical and recovered unaccounted income of Rs 550 crore. It seized Rs 142 crore cash.
Voting in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore constituency was cancelled in 2019 due to seizure of at least Rs 12 crore cash from the associate of a DMK leader Durai Murugan, the then MLA from Vellore and DMK treasurer.
In 2018, a whopping Rs 163-crore cash and 101-kg bullion was seized in raids by the Income Tax department in Tamil Nadu at several premises of a road construction company.
The firm reportedly had admitted to tax evasion and came forward to pay tax and penalty and return. The accused had kept Rs 24 lakh cash in his house whereas the rest was stored at 10 different places belonging to his employees and associates.
In 2016, the Election Commission seized unaccounted cash amounting to Rs 104 crore during the assembly elections. The staggering amount reportedly surpassed cash seizures made in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry.
