I-T scans 23 premises in Rajkot

The Income Tax department on Wednesday raided 23 establishments in the city on Wednesday and conducted search operations to trace cash transactions of around Rs 250 crore of few business operators in the city.

Various office and residence premises belonging to chartered accountants, income tax consultants, tours and travels operators, land and building developers, jewellers, commodity and stock market traders were raided, said an official from Rajkot I-T department. However, the entire operation was monitored from Ahmedabad I-T office, he added.

This is for the first time, the investigation wing of I-T department has targeted individual business operators instead of raiding the concerned company or partnership venture.

Team of more than 100 officials stormed the office and residence of Kalpak Maniar and Mihir Maniar of Arvindkumar & Co."" a chartered accountant firm, office of Jyotindra Mehta "" a chairman of Rajkot Nagrik Sahakari Bank, showroom and residence of Mathur Babrawala of Radhika Jewellers on Palace Road, Kanaiya travels office belonging to Gangdas Hira, ex-mayor Govind Solanki.s office, Naresh Shah and Harish Shah of Darshan tea, along with various builders including Jagdish Pala, Rajni Shah, Ashok Ganatra, Vijay Parsana and Raju Parsana among others.

The team also visited the concerned banks from where the accounts of these firms operated and searched the financial transactions.

The officials suspect huge transactions worth Rs 50 crore has been carried out by a businessman whose identity is yet not disclosed as well as a chemicals traders whose business transaction values Rs 15 crore.

The officials are trying to gauge the legal and illegal transactions conducted by them by tallying their books of accounts and bank transactions. When contacted, the additional director of Income tax department in Rajkot, Sanjay Rai said,"I am not in a position to comment on this issue."