From Partha Chatterjee to Piyush Jain, big raids that captured India’s attention

The Enforcement Directorate raid on Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee relating to the teacher recruitment scam has uncovered a whopping Rs 50 crore (and counting), sparked a political firestorm in West Bengal, and captured the attention of a nation. Let’s look back at some of the other big raids that shook India: 2019 raid on perfume baron Piyush Jain In 2019, Central agencies raided the premises of perfume baron Piyush Jain. What they found from the Kanpur-based businessman who had offices in Kannauj, Kanpur and Mumbai  was eye-opening – 257 crore in cash, 250 kg silver, 25 kg of gold and nine drums of ‘sandal’ oil. As per News18, the DGGI’s then additional director General Vivek Prasad said that this is “the biggest ever seizure of cash by Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs officials." Besides the cash, gold and silver, officials also recovered documents relating to 16 expensive properties, four of those are in Kanpur, seven in Kanauj, two in Mumbai and one in Delhi; over 18 lockers in a cellar at Piyush Jain’s ancestral house in Kanauj and over 300 keys; around 40 shell companies, including two in West Asia. The incident also provoked a spat between the Samajwadi Party and Bharatiya Janata Party with each claiming Jain was affiliated with the other party. [caption id=“attachment_10239091” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Cash retrieved by tax officials from UP businessman Piyush Jain’s residence during a raid in Kanpur district. PTI[/caption] BJP leader Sambit Patra tweeted that the person raided had “launched the ‘Samajwadi’ perfume in November.” As per News18, SP district spokesperson Vijay Dwivedi had responded that Jain had not launched the ‘Samajwadi’ perfume and that the party has no links with the businessman. “The BJP is trying to malign SP’s image by associating the party with the raids. The raids on Piyush Jain in Kanpur or in Kannauj have nothing to do with the Samajwadi Party. The I-T department should take action. Piyush Jain has nothing to do with Samajwadi perfume and he did not launch the Samajwadi perfume. It was launched by one of our MLCs and a businessman whose name is also Jain. People of the entire community cannot be called criminals,” Dwivedi had said. Sardar Inder Singh and India’s longest tax raid (at the time) As per Daily O, tax sleuths knocked on the door of former MP Sardar Inder Singh on 16 July, 1981. The 91-year-old Singh, a former MP and MLA, awoke to see a staggering 90 officers outside his gate. When the raid began at 8 am, even the IT officers were unaware of what they were going to discover – the then unheard of sum of Rs 1.6 crore in cash. The operation, which had been planned for one day, eventually winded up stretching over two days and three nights. The first day alone uncovered Rs 92 lakh in cash. The I-T team also uncovered 250 tolas of gold worth Rs 11 lakh, two gold bars worth Rs 9.12 lakh, jewellery worth Rs 7.54 lakh, 144 guineas of Rs 1.85 lakh and fixed deposits worth Rs 7.04 lakh. As per India Today, the I-T Department led by then deputy director Alak Kumar Batbyal had  enlist the help of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to fully count the cash. RBI chief manager Syed Raza Zaidi told India Today, “A special room was set aside and 45 people including some officers were deputed to count the cash and even then it took 18 hours.” [caption id=“attachment_8559061” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Official logo of the Income Tax department[/caption] The RBI had to lend their cash vans along with armed gunmen to transport the haul, as per India Today. As per Daily O, Sharda Prasad Pandey, then Commissioner of Income Tax department best summed it up at the time. “There has never been another recovery like it,” Pandey said. The events served as the inspiration for the 2018 move Raid. Raid on chit fund group, silk saree vendor As per Times Now, the Income Tax Department in October 2021 unearthed unaccounted cash worth Rs 250 crore and 9.5 kg of gold jewellery in raids conducted on premises of one chit fund and another retailer of silk sarees and other garments. The search operations were carried out at 34 premises located in Kanchipuram, Chennai and Vellore, the I-T department said. I-T sleuths found that the group was running an unauthorised chit fund business, and all the investments and pay-outs of more than Rs 400 crore over the past few years were done entirely in cash. The group earned unaccounted income by way of commission and dividends, the sleuths claimed. Numerous promissory notes, signed post-dated cheques and power of attorney documents kept as collateral for the loans given or from chit subscribers have also been seized, the department said, as per the report. Raid on Sasikala’s kin and associates In 2017, The Income Tax Department unearthed tax evasion of Rs 1,430 crore during its raids/searches spread over five days at the premises of VK Sasikala’s kin and their business associates. [caption id=“attachment_9227341” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  File photo of VK Sasikala. Twitter/AIADMKOfficial[/caption] Sasikala was the confidante of late Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa and lived with her for decades. A team of around 1,800 IT officials knocked at the doors of 187 premises, residences and offices and farmhouses, to carry out one of the biggest income tax searches on Sasikala’s kin and associates. The places raided included the residence of Sasikala’s husband M Natarajan in Thanjavur, Kodanad Tea Estate belonging to Jayalalithaa, Jazz Cinemas, Midas Distilleries, Sharada Paper and Boards, Senthil Group of Companies, Nilgiri Furniture in Coimbatore, Jaya TV, Namadhu MGR and several other premises in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. The searches were conducted in connection with unexplained routing of cash post-demonetisation through shell companies allegedly connected to Sasikala and her nephew TTV Dinakaran. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.