Nearly 907 acres of land belonging to the Kalki group, owned by self-styled godman Kalki Bhagwan has been provisionally attached under the provisions of the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, sources said in Chennai on Thursday.
About 400 acres is located at Satyavedu in Andhra Pradesh and other land parcels are in Arani, Udhagamandalam, on the outskirts of Coimbatore, near Madurai and in Belgaum.
Sources said the Initiating Officer of Benami Prohibition Unit (BPU) under the Income Tax Department, Chennai, has issued attachment orders under Section 24(3) of the Act, and sent them to the respective Sub-Registrars. The provisional attachment is for 90 days.
In October this year, the IT Department had conducted searches on the group and said preliminary estimate of unaccounted cash receipts was ₹409 crore from the financial year 2014-15 onwards. About 90 kg of gold, and more than 1,000 carats of diamonds and ₹150 crore of unaccounted cash in Indian and foreign currencies were unearthed during the searches by the Investigation Wing of the Income Tax Department, Chennai.
IT officials said the unaccounted money was diverted to purchase properties in the names of the faculty of Oneness University, which held the benami properties on behalf of Kalki Bhagwan’s son Krishna and daughter-in-law Preetha.
The faculty members are called Dasajis and the property was held in the names of Lokeswara, Ananthagiri and Chandrasekar.
