I-T officials raid Chennai business group, find tax evasion worth ₹700 crore

The raids covered 60 premises in Chennai, Trichy, Coimbatore and states including Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The Income Tax department has detected tax evasion worth over ₹700 crore after it raided multiple locations of a Chennai-based business conglomerate from December 9 onwards. A source in the I-T department said that the teams raided the Chettinad Group of companies.

Image for representation. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

In a statement on Tuesday, the I-T department said that the group will “attract action under the Black Money Act” since they had not disclosed foreign assets worth ₹110 crore in the form of fixed deposits.

The raids covered 60 premises in Chennai, Trichy, Coimbatore and states including Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The Chettinad Group, headquartered in Chennai, has business in various sectors, including cement, education, healthcare, security, coal, construction, steel and power generation, with a turnover of 4,000 crore. The present managing director of the group is MAMR Muthiah, the adopted son of industrialist-politician MAM Ramaswamy.

The findings include unaccounted cash to the tune of ₹23 crore, capital gains worth ₹280 crore, receipts not accounted fully or bogus claims of depreciation amounting to ₹435 crore. The unaccounted cash was found from a ‘key person’, the department tweeted on December 9.

“These are indications of capitation fee receipts for medical admissions to postgraduate programmes,” the statement read. “During the search, details of financial transactions between the searched group and another group for the sale of three infrastructure facilities at various ports were found.”

The department added that they identified a large number of lockers and that the search is temporarily concluded and investigations are in progress.