Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi/Noida: In a significant development, the Income-Tax department on Wednesday raided residences and offices of Ponty Chadha, one of biggest liquor traders in North India.
A team of 20 officials, armed with counting machines and gas cutters reached the Centrestage Mall in Noida in the outskirts of Delhi to seize cash stored in its basement, top sources in the department said.
As the search teams were not given the keys to the chest, whose contents were not known, the gas cutters were being used to break it open, the sources said.
Searches were conducted in Delhi at 13 locations including at the posh Sainik Farms and Lajpat Nagar, while in UP, IT teams comprising 200 officials, undertook similar operations at six locations in Noida, Moradabad and state capital Lucknow.
Cash worth Rs 100 crore has reportedly been seized during the I-T raids.
Gurpreet Chadha alias Ponty Chadha is the sole distributor of liquor in Uttar Pradesh and is said to be very close to Chief Minister Mayawati.
As per reports, the Directorate of Criminal Investigation of Income Tax had been investigating Chadha’s dealings for a while now and moved into raid 17 locations after a go ahead by the finance ministry.
Besides the liquor business spread across many states, Chadha also owns a chain of multiplexes – under Wave brand - in the National Capital Region.
As per a news channel, Chadha came under the scanner of the I-T department over his hawala dealings. The report further said that two of his associates Lalit Kapoor and Gurjeet Kochar from Delhi – alleged to be partners in hawala trade - have been detained for questioning.
56-year-old Chadha shot into limelight after Maywati handed over the entire distributorship of liquor in UP to him. There have been allegations that liquor bottles are sold above MRP in the state and the proceeds go to politicians.
Besides liquor and multiplexes, Chadha had recently bought five sugar mills in UP and also ventured into film production.
In 2009, media reports pegged his enterprise at over Rs 6000 crore in size by quoting the man himself.
First Published: Wednesday, February 01, 2012, 13:05