The Income Tax (IT) sleuths who raided two hotels belonging to two different groups and a hatchery in Bangalore on Friday are in the process of unearthing incriminating documents related to their business investments, cash, gold jewellery and other properties.
The raid which started on Friday morning went on till late night. It will continue for one more day.
The searches were carried out simultaneously at 20 places including offices and residences of the groups' owners — Anand Naidu, owner of Nandhini Deluxe group of hotels, K Prakash Shetty, CMD of Gold Finch group of hotels and SM Kamal Pasha, CMD of Golden Hatcheries — and others, who were found to have invested in these business establishments, said one Income Tax official.The searches were conducted after the officers received information that these businessmen had been evading tax and amassing wealth disproportionate to their sources of income.
“The raids are still on and the officials are compiling and verifying documents. Details of properties found are yet to be complied. However, it will run into crores. The evaluation will take another two days to complete.” said an IT official.
“We will give them 30 days to submit the exact value of their investments and to reveal how they accumulated such an amount. Even after 90 days, if they failed to do that, we will seize their properties and shut the entities down,” he added.
Since several prominent people including realtors, politicians and businessmen are found to have invested in these groups, their residences are also being searched. Their investments run into hundreds of crores, said one officer. “A well-know politician's brother and some Congress leaders are also included in this,” he said.
Anand Naidu, resident of Jayanagar II block was one of the first entrepreneurs in Bangalore. He started the Nandhini Deluxe group of hotels, the first group of hotels to introduce Andhra cuisine in the city.
K Prakash Shetty, CMD of Gold Finch, a boutique hotel and the chairman and managing director of MRG Group situated on Crescent Road.He started with a small bar and hotel at Jayanagar. He became a well-known hotelier after he offered to cater for the 1984 Asian Games held in the city.
SM Kamal Pasha is C&MD of Golden Hatcheries, which deals in poultry products. It is the largest such group in Karnataka. During the search at his office, the sleuths found documents on investments made by Congress leader’s brother, whose house was also later raided. The politician had left JD(S) and joined Congress.
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