The GST intelligence team that had raided the premises of Kanpur-based perfume maker Piyush Jain, who the BJP alleged was close to the Samajwadi Party, arrested him after Rs 200 crore were found in the raids at his premises. Jain has been booked under Section 69 of the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Act.
Two days after unaccounted cash worth over Rs 177 crore was unearthed in a series of joint raids by various taxation agencies at his business and official premises, law enforcement officials found 8 sacks filled with Rs 2,000 currency notes as raids continued at the ancestral home of the businessman in Uttar Pradesh’s Kannauj yesterday.
Rs 10 crore have been recovered from the house so far, as officials probe is underway.
Jain’s house has been sealed while a thorough search is underway amid a heavy presence of tax officials.
Sources say that more cash is likely to be unearthed in the said raids.
The residential and business premises of Kanpur industrialist Piyush Jain were raided on Thursday and Friday by sleuths of various anti-tax-evasion agencies, including the Income Tax Department, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Intelligence unit, they said.
Although there was no official confirmation of the search operation and seizures, a senior tax-enforcement official said on the condition of anonymity that raids were conducted at Jain’s multiple premises in Kanpur, Gujarat and Mumbai began on 23 December.
Some photographs of the reported raids going viral on various social media platforms showed stacks of cash stuffed in large wardrobes at the residential premises of the Samajwadi businessman in Kanpur.
Jain runs factories also in Kanpur neighbouring District Kannauj. The tax officials raided also a factory manufacturing Shikhar brand of pan masala and other scented tobacco products here in the city.
During the search operation at the residential premises, huge amounts of cash, wrapped in paper, has been found, the official said.
The money was allegedly linked to the despatch of goods via fake invoices and without e-way bills by a goods transporter, the official said.
The officials reached the Kannauj house of Jain along with his two sons Molu and Pratyush, at around 3.00 PM. The raids sparked off a war of words between the BJP and Samajwadi Party.
The Uttar Pradesh unit of the BJP said, “People of the Samajwadi Party, the stench of your sins cannot be washed away by the ‘perfume of corruption’. More than Rs 150 crore of black money has been seized. And it is natural for Akhilesh to feel the pain, when action is initiated on the corrupt people.”
“The whole of Uttar Pradesh knows that Samajwadi Party means corruption,” the tweet said.
Rebutting the claims of the BJP, Manish Jagan Agrawal, the digital media co-ordinator of Samajwadi Party in a series of tweets in Hindi said, “The raids at the house of Shikhar Pan Masala Group and perfume trader Piyush Jain in Kanpur and the cash recovered is a story of failure of demonetisation. The BJP and the media are defaming the Samajwadi Party by forcibly linking Piyush Jain and Shikhar Pan Masala to Samajwadi Party. Piyush Jain has nothing to do with SP MLC Pumpi Jain.”
“Since a few days ago, income tax raids were conducted on people linked to the Samajwadi Party, but the government and the agencies did not get anything. People associated with the Samajwadi Party came out clean. Hence, a frustrated BJP immediately conducted a raid, and recovered cash, and also hatched a conspiracy to link their propaganda with the Samajwadi Party, and mislead the people,” Agrawal said in another tweet.
The businessman who launched the ‘Samajwadi Perfume’ is not Piyush Jain but Pushpraj Jain alias Pampi Jain who has been a Samajwadi Party MLC whereas Piyush Jain has links with the BJP, alleges Akhilesh Yadav’s party.
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