The Income Tax department today conducted search and survey operations at the Lilavati Hospital and 28 other premises here in connection with alleged financial irregularities committed by its trustees and owners.
The operations come in the wake of a petition filed by Delhi resident Harsh Raghuvanshi seeking investigation into alleged siphoning of funds by hospital trustees Prabodh Mehta, Rashmi Mehta, Chetan Mehta and Bhavin Mehta.
The Mehtas have been accused of siphoning out money from the hospital trust and depositing it in LGT bank, Germany and other tax havens abroad, including those in Mauritius, using hawala channels.
“We have conducted searches and surveys on 29 premises, including the residence of Mehtas,” additional director of investigations (I-T), A K Singh said.
I-T sources said the searches were still being conducted at the premises of Mayfair Realty and Vestra Infrastructure, which had financial dealings with the Lilavati Trust.
The searches were conducted at finance, purchase, biomedical and pharmaceuticals departments of the hospital from where I-T sleuths also seized some computer hard disks and papers.
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The Supreme Court had last week issued notices to the Centre and the RBI on a petition seeking probe into the alleged money laundering by trustees of Lilavati Hospital.
Meanwhile, Lilavati Hospital authorities in a statement have confirmed the search operations and said they were cooperating with the I-T officials. “Let me assure the functioning of the hospital is unaffected and the patients are being taken care of by our doctors,” managing and permanent trustee of the hospital, Niket Vijay Mehta said.