Taxmen seize Rs 8 crore, gold from engineering college

Speaking to DTNext, an I-T official said, a team of 425 sleuths went to the spot on information that there was black money in the offices of the institution. The large team had I-T staff from Coimbatore, Bengaluru and also from the reserve force. The rest comprised of I-T personnel from Chennai. 

This was a purely Chennai-based raid. By 2.45 pm, the team seized documents worth Rs 3.25 crore and by 4.30 pm around eight crore rupees were seized. Later, gold was also seized’, the source said. 

The institute comes under the Sathyabama Trust. I-T sleuths are said to have carried out the ‘surprise raids’, based on information that unaccounted cash and black money was being stored and was deposited into several bank accounts of the employees. It is suspected that the amount was accumulated through capitation fees and other funds. 

An official source said that, some people had knowledge about the demonetisation in advance and opened ‘duplicate’ accounts much ahead. It is learnt that the directors of the institute also had duplicate accounts. 

Meanwhile, a source said that I-T department noticed that the bank accounts of the institutes’ employees saw a surge in bank balance. Suspecting that the institute was depositing the cash into their accounts, a way of converting black money into white, the raids were conducted.

Post demonetisation, many bank accounts, including those opened under the Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan scheme which had nil balance has cash flowing in to the tune of lakhs.