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New Delhi : The Income-Tax (I-T) Department carried out search and seizure operations on December 1,2021, in respect of two groups engaged in the Retail Sales of Jewellery, Textiles, and Home Appliances through their popular chain of stores in Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, and Tirunelveliin Tamil Nadu (TN) . A total of 37 premises were covered in this action.

In the case of the first group, seized documents and other incriminating materials gathered during the course of the search have revealed that the assessee had been actively involved in systematically suppressing sales by manipulating their books of accounts. The extent of suppression of sales is found to be more than Rs 1,000 crore, over a period of several years.  It was also found, that, the assessee had made unaccounted cash purchases of about Rs 150 crore in textile division and jewellery division during the past few years.

In respect of the second group, incriminating material seized during the course of search, has revealed that the assessee group had obtained bogus bills from a set of parties to the tune of Rs 80 crore and thereby suppressed taxable income. Evidences relating to the unaccounted purchases of gold have also been gathered. Besides, the assessee group is found to be debiting inflated making charges of jewellery. In addition, unaccounted rental receipts and the unaccounted scrap sales aggregating to Rs 7 crore were also detected, according to a PIB release.

The searches on the two groups have led to a seizure of cash of Rs 10 crore and jewellery/ bullion worth about Rs. 6 crore. Further investigations are under progress.