Odisha I-T raids: Rs 200 crore in cash recovered from firm allegedly linked to Congress MP

PTI, Dec 9, 2023, 8:09 AM IST

Bhubaneswar: ‘Unaccounted’ cash amounting to around Rs 250 crore is expected to be recovered through searches being conducted by the income-tax department against a Odisha-based distillery group and entities linked to it, official sources said on Friday.

The raids launched against Boudh Distillery Private Limited on Wednesday are still continuing and cash amounting to more than Rs 200 crore has so far been recovered. The total recovery could be around Rs 250 crore, the sources said.

Three dozen counting machines have been deployed by the tax department. Since the machines are of a limited capacity, the counting is progressing at a slow pace, the sources added.

Premises linked to the Congress’s Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand, Dhiraj Prasad Sahu, were also covered during the searches, the sources said.

An e-mail sent by PTI to the distillery group on Thursday elicited no response.

Officials said cash amounting to Rs 200 crore, stashed in almirahs, was recovered from a premises of the distillery group in Balangir district, while the remaining amount was found from other locations, such as Sambalpur and Sundargarh in Odisha, Bokaro and Ranchi in Jharkhand and Kolkata.

In a post on X, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tagged a news report about the I-T department recovering Rs 200 crore in cash from various locations of a business group allegedly linked to Sahu, as he attacked the opposition party.

“Countrymen should look at these piles of currency notes and then hear the addresses of its (Congress) leaders on honesty. Every penny looted from people will have to be returned. This is Modi’s guarantee,” he said in a post with several emojis.

Sahu’s staff expressed their inability to get a comment from the MP when PTI called on his phone for a reaction to the I-T department’s action.

The sources said the taxman acted on ‘inputs’ of a huge amount of cash being remitted by liquor distributors, sellers and business groups and hence, the raids were launched.