IT raids on Kat & PC's homes!! - Page 2

BHOPAL: In 'bimaru' Madhya Pradesh, bank lockers of bureaucrats and government officials are bursting with cash and gold.

An IAS couple here owns 25 flats and 400 acres of land. A middle-ranking engineer's wife owns three houses and has more than 10 kg gold in her bank locker. And wherever the income tax department conducts a raid, so much cash is unearthed that counting machines have to be brought in.

This week, the I-T department submitted two appraisal reports to the Lokayukta and the state government on earlier raids.

One report claimed that a search of official residence of an IAS couple Arvind and Tinoo Joshi on Feb 4, 2010 revealed unaccounted wealth of Rs 360 crore. Cash and foreign currency found was too much to be counted manually ' machines counted Rs 3 crore in cash and Rs 7 lakh in foreign currency. Gold worth Rs 67 lakh kept in a suitcase was also seized.

Documents recovered from their possession revealed that the 1979 Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS couple had purchased 25 flats. The family paid a life insurance premium of Rs 3.5 crore, speculative trading for 274 crore and bought stock specific shares for Rs 3 crore. Following the raids the couple was suspended.

Last Monday, the I-T department opened two lockers belonging to the wife of a PWD executive engineer Ashok Kumar Jain and found 7.8 kg of gold mostly in bars and Rs 1.6 crore in cash. One year ago, Jain, posted in Narsinghpur district, drew a salary of less than Rs 20,000 per month. Ashok Jain has been booked for amassing wealth disproportionate to his income.

The health scam raids conducted three-and-half years ago were more shocking. At the residence of former health director, Yogiraj Sharma, notes were falling out of washing machines, wardrobes, quilts, pillows, bed-sheets and 'masala' dabbas. The former health director's family slept on mattresses stuffed with notes. That day in September 2007, machines counted 1.75 crore in Indian and Rs 6 lakh in foreign currency there.