Ahead of Assembly polls, I-T department seizes Rs 4 crore unaccounted cash, 6.5 kg gold in Karnataka

Bengaluru: The Income Tax department has seized Rs 4 crore unaccounted cash and 6.5 kg gold jewellery from three state contractors in Bengaluru, Mysuru and Davangere in poll-bound Karnataka, said an official on Friday. “The unaccounted cash and gold jewellery were found during simultaneous raids on the contractors on Thursday and were seized subsequently,” said Joint Income Tax Joint Commissioner G Ramesh in a statement in Bengaluru. [caption id=“attachment_3180310” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational photo. PTI[/caption] Of the Rs 4 crore cash, Rs 1.2 crore was found in a moving car after a hot pursuit by the sleuths of the department’s investigation wing. “Besides cash and jewellery, we got evidence of inflated purchases, payments to fake sub-contractors, fraudulent labour payments and unaccounted cash payments,” Ramesh said. The department is on the lookout for hoarded cash in Karnataka and across the country which had recently resulted in the shortage of currency notes in some states. During raids on 24-26 April, the department seized Rs 6.76 crore of unaccounted cash from four government contractors in Mysuru. Since the May 12 state assembly elections were announced on  27 March, the tax department has seized Rs 10.62 crore unaccounted cash and gold jewellery valued at Rs 1.33 crore. Intelligence collected by the investigation wing also indicated that several contractors across the state were possessing huge stocks of cash in Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 notes. Earlier, the tax sleuths seized Rs 4.13 crore in cash and 4.52 kg gold jewellery valued at Rs 1.32 crore during raids conducted across the state over the last three weeks.