"Incriminating evidence" seized from residence premises of

former PS to Chandrababu Naidu
Amaravati, Feb 13 (PTI) The Central Board of Direct Taxes
on Thursday announced seizure of "incriminating evidence" from
the residence and other premises of former Andhra Pradesh
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's ex- private secretary
Pendyala Srinivasa Rao.
Income tax sources said the raids were carried out over
the last five days.
Rao worked as Chandrababus Personal Secretary for over
two decades and is currently posted as assistant section
officer in the state Planning Department.
Besides, IT raids were also conducted on the premises of
Telugu Desam Party Kadapa district president Srinivasa Reddy.
Reddy runs a private infrastructure company based in
Hyderabad, where too the searches were conducted last week.
The CBDT, however, did not name these persons in its
official release, but only made indirect references.
Exact details of documents seized or cash, if any, were
also not revealed.
In an official release on Thursday, CBDT official
spokesperson Surabhi Ahluwalia said the Income Tax Department
carried out Search and Seizure on February 6 at Hyderabad,
Vijayawada, Kadapa, Vishakhapatnam, Delhi and Pune.
More than 40 premises were covered.
The search action included three prominent
infrastructure groups based in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Investigations led to busting of a major racket of cash
generation through bogus sub-contractors, over-invoicing and
bogus billing, she said.
Several incriminating documents and loose papers were
found and seized during the search, apart from emails,
WhatsApp messages and unexplained foreign transactions.
Search operation was also carried out on close
associates, including ex-personal secretary of a "prominent
person" and incriminating evidence seized, she added.
The search operations revealed that infrastructure
companies had sub-contracted work to several non-
existent/bogus entities.
Preliminary estimates suggested siphoning of more than Rs
2,000 crore through transactions that were layered through
multiple entities with the last in the chain being small
entities with turnover less than Rs two crore to avoid
maintenance of books of accounts and tax audits.
"Such entities were either not found at their registered
address or were found to be shell entities.
Several such sub-contractors were controlled by the
principal contractors with all their income tax returns
filings and other compliances being done from the IP addresses
of main corporate office," the CBDT spokesperson said.
FDI receipts of several crores of Rupees in the group
companies of one of the infrastructure companies were
suspected to be round-tripping of its unaccounted funds.
Unexplained cash of Rs 85 lakh and jewellery worth Rs 71
lakh have been seized.
More than 25 bank lockers have been restrained, Surabhi
added. PTI DBV APR
APR APR

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)