The Income Tax Department has conducted searches on the premises of three Punjab-based prominent commission agent groups, which are also engaged in the business of running steel rolling, rice, flour and oil mills.
The premises covered during the operation on September 8 are located in Punjab and Haryana. The agents also run poultries and jewellery shop. “It is found that advances in cash aggregating to crores are given to farmers and interest rates of 1.5 % to 3.00% per month is charged. The interest is received in cash and not shown in the books of account,” said the agency.
According to the Department, the groups were suppressing their business receipts and inflating expenses. Most of the cash received and paid was not accounted for. “Certain documents showing payments of on-money in cash in acquiring immoveable properties have been seized,” said the Department.
The agency found books of accounts, in Laddo script, which showed unaccounted transactions running into crores. They are being deciphered with the help of an expert. Parallel sets of account books of some business concerns have also been found, indicating suppression of gross business receipts.
Two suspected 'benami' firms in the names of employees have been unearthed during the probe. Their turnover is in crores of rupees per year. Discrepancy in finished-goods stock of the steel rolling mills have been found. There was also unaccounted investment in immovable assets amounting to ₹3.40 crore.
This apart, the I-T Department has detected diversion of funds as interest free loans or advances to the family members of a group. During the search, it found ₹1.70 crore of unaccounted cash and jewellery worth ₹1.50 crore.
