Srinagar- The crime branch of police on Monday carried out a series of raids in its ongoing probe into the multi-crore income tax scam, involving hundreds of people, including Jammu and Kashmir government employees.
The searches were carried by CB’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) into the bogus income-tax refund claims made by hundreds of people in the Union Territory over the past few years.
Multiple teams of the EOW carried out search of numerous houses, offices of accused and suspects in the presence of Executive Duty Magistrates allegedly involved in case FIR No’s. 27/2023 and 28/2023, an official spokesperson said.
The cases had been registered on May 25 this year on the basis of a complaint from the office of the Principal Commissioner of Income Tax, Srinagar.
Reportedly, over 400 people, including government employees, besides a chartered accountant are facing criminal charges of conspiring and defrauding the government exchequer for a sum of Rs.16.72 crores between financial years 2017-18 to 2019-20
Giving further details, the spokesperson said that the cases pertain to the criminal manipulation/ tampering of electronic and other data, which enabled the “perpetrators of the crime” to fraudulently claim refund of Income Tax shown to have been earlier deducted at source etc.
“The said criminal acts have resulted in wrongful pecuniary gain running into crores of Rupees to the accused individuals while causing a corresponding financial loss to the Income Tax Department, Government of India,” he said
Monday’s searches, he said, were carried out as part of the ongoing investigation of the cases during which due diligence and all procedures mandated by law were followed.
“No arrests were made during the search operation. However, some incriminating documents, desktop & laptop computers etc. have been recovered and seized. These have been taken on record for examination and further analysis as probable evidence in the cases,” the spokesperson said.
He further said that investigation of the cases is progressing satisfactorily and further updates would be shared at an opportune time in the future.
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