The Income Tax Department initiated search and seizureoperations on two major real estate developers of Ludhiana. The search actioncovered around 40 premises based in Ludhiana.
The major finding emanating from these search and seizureoperations of both the groups is about the receipt of unaccounted cash by thesegroups by way of on-money on property transactions.
During the course of search proceedings documentaryevidences in the nature of ‘agreement to sale’, (popularly known as ‘Biyana’ inlocal parlance), for certain properties have been found and seized. Thesedocuments indicate that the ‘agreement to sale’ for plots has been executed atmuch higher amount/rate as compared to the consideration disclosed inregistered sale deed of the plot.
Further, incriminating documents such as loose sheets,excel sheets showing calculation of receipt of on-money of certain propertytransactions, soft data, chats from mobile phones of the persons concerned,etc. have also been recovered. A preliminary analysis of these evidencesclearly indicates the receipt of unaccounted cash by way of on-money onproperty transactions. Besides, certain other corroborative evidencessupporting the receipt of on-money have also been gathered.
Investigations have also revealed that unaccounted cashexpenditure has been incurred on construction of residential house of one ofthe key persons.
In one of the groups, defaults on compliances for theprovisions of tax deduction at source have been detected with regard topayments made to the sellers of the land, etc.
The search action has resulted in seizure of unaccountedcash of about Rs. 2.00 crore besides foreign exchange, and unexplainedjewellery of about Rs. 2.30 crore. Furtherinvestigations are under progress.