I-T department studied Lilavati case for 6 months

Though the income tax department is yet to finalise the amount of income concealed by the Lilavati Hospital trustees, it is studying transactions by the hospital and its trust from early 2000.

Though the income tax department is yet to finalise the amount of income concealed by the Lilavati Hospital trustees, it is studying transactions by the hospital and its trust from early 2000.

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"We have been on the case for the last six months and studied some transactions before conducting searches," a senior I-T official said, requesting anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

He said the department had an idea of the amount of concealed income, but it was being verified by crosschecking documents seized during searches.

The official said the department had found some bulk medicine purchase bills of around 400 medicine dealers that were inflated.

"We found that the cost of the medicines were inflated in these bills to increase expenditure in account books," the official said. He said this reduced profit and helped in evading tax.

The department has started investigations on these medicine dealers.

Last week, the Supreme Court issued notices to the Centre and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) seeking a probe into alleged money laundering by some trustees of Lilavati Hospital.

The notices were issued in response to a petition filed by a Delhi resident seeking a probe into the siphoning of funds by trustees Prabodh Mehta, Chetan Mehta, Rashmi Mehta and Bhavin Mehta and parking it in a bank account in Lichentstein.

Following the searches, I-T authorities wrote to the Central Board of Direct Taxes in Delhi to seek the help of Dubai, Switzerland, Mauritius and Belgium governments for bank account and other details of the trustees.