Income Tax officials on Monday carried out searches at the corporate office and branches of the Sri Chaitanya Group of educational institutions simultaneously in Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai.
As many as 30 teams of I-T sleuths descended on the group’s Madhapur corporate office and its branches in Hyderabad and went through the fee collection system, including the logbooks and accounts, cross-checking them with the Income Tax Returns filed by Sri Chaitanya for the last two years.
I-T sources disclosed that the institution is suspected to have violated various rules regarding fee collection across all its branches.
The I-T sleuths reportedly found that the group was collecting a major portion of the fee in cash using specialised software for internal purposes — this software programme allowed it to track fee collections and pending payments.
I-T teams find Rs 2 crore in cash
The I-T sleuths suspect that the two different software programmes were used to evade tax for years as money received in cash was not mentioned in the Income Tax Returns.
I-T sources revealed that the sleuths found about `2 crore in cash in the group’s corporate office located at Madhapur. Two other offices adjacent to the corporate office also yielded a hoard of cash, they said, without elaborating. Meanwhile, an official statement on the seizures made during the raids is awaited.
The sources said that the I-T sleuths are trying to retrieve data hidden in the specialised software, and the official figures on the tax evaded will be released afterwards.
The sources disclosed that the agency may conduct searches on the offices and residences of the group’s directors and key officials, and related businesses, while following the money trail. The searches are likely to continue well into Tuesday.
