Income Tax Department seizes cash worth over Rs 142 crore after raids on Hyderabad-based Pharma group

The Ministry of Finance informed that during the raids on October 6, unaccounted income unearthed is estimated to be in the range of about Rs 550 crore till now.

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New Delhi: The Ministry of Finance on Saturday (October 9, 2021) informed that the Income Tax Department carried out search and seizure operations on a major pharmaceutical group based out of Hyderabad and seized cash over Rs 142 crore. The search operation was carried out at about 50 locations across six states on October 6.

The pharmaceutical group is engaged in the business of manufacturing of intermediates, Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and formulations and a majority of its products are exported to foreign countries namely the US, Europe, Dubai and other African countries. 

"During the searches, hideouts were identified where the second set of books of accounts and cash were found. Incriminating evidence in the form of digital media, pen drives, documents, etc have been found and seized. Incriminating digital evidence were gathered from SAP @ ERP software maintained by the assessee group," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.

"During these searches, issues relating to discrepancies in purchases made from bogus and non-existent entities and artificial inflation of certain heads of expenditure were detected. Further, evidence of on-money payment for the purchase of lands was also found. Various other legal issues were also identified such as personal expenses being booked in the company’s books and land purchased by related parties below government registration value," the statement added.

The Ministry of Finance informed that during the search, several bank lockers were found, of which, 16 lockers have been operated. The searches resulted in the seizure of unexplained cash amounting to Rs 142.87 crore so far and the unaccounted income unearthed is estimated to be in the range of about Rs 550 crore till now.

Further investigations and quantification of undisclosed income detected is in progress, the Finance Ministry said.