Income Tax officials seize properties worth Rs 1,000 crore belonging to Ajit Pawar

Officials from the Income Tax department have seized assets worth over Rs 1,000 crore belonging to Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar. An NDTV report, citing sources said five properties, including Nirmal Tower at Mumbai’s iconic Nariman Point, have been seized. Jarandeshwar Sahakari Sugar Karkhana (Jarandeshwar SSK) in Maharashtra and a resort in Goa have also been seized. Ajit Pawar, the nephew of Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar, will now have 90 days to prove that the attached properties were not purchased with benami (undisclosed and illegal) money. Ajit Pawar and (his) family are the “beneficiaries of the above Benami properties,” the Income Tax Department said, invoking the Anti-Benami Act and alleging that the properties were bought illegally. The seizure of assets comes a month after officials had conducted searches at the houses and firms owned by Pawar’s sisters. The minister at the time had called the raids ‘politically motivated’. On 15 October, the tax department authorities had said it had unearthed unaccounted income worth Rs 184 crore after it had raided premises of two companies linked to the family of Ajit Pawar. With inputs from agencies