Four days after the Income Tax Department officials raided the residence and business establishments of Gaya-based trader Motilal, the IT sleuths have now recommended CBI investigation into a murky deal.
The I-T officials had unearthed huge transactions of money worth several crores through accounts of poor people. The move follows after the account holders, mostly poor, feigned ignorance about crores being deposited in their accounts.
Many such account holders have lodged FIRs at Muffasil police station against the trader naming them as an accused. The businessman had reportedly used around 50 Jan Dhan accounts to deposit his cash worth over Rs 200 crore.
One such ‘beneficiary’ was Suresh Kumar, a rickshaw puller, in whose account Rs 1.4 crore was deposited. Similarly, Rs 2 crore each were deposited in the bank accounts of Sudama Singh and Bhikhari Prasad, the two employees of Motilal.
DH had earlier published a report “Trader uses 30 Jan Dhan accounts to convert black money” when the raid was on. The report highlighted how Motilal had used bank accounts of Jan Dhan yojna beneficiaries to convert his several crores worth black money into white.
When the Income Tax officials quizzed the account holders, one such person Ruby Kumari told the interrogating sleuths that she never deposited Rs 3.5 crore in her bank account post-November 8 - the day when Rs 500 and Rs 1000 were declared “no more a legal tender.” Similarly, the other ‘beneficiaries’ Shashi Kumar and his brothers denied having depositing Rs 3 crore in their accounts in the Bank of India, Manpura branch.
“Five persons have so far lodged separate FIRs against the bank officials and businessman Motilal, owner of a textile mill,” said the source. “Since large-scale irregular transactions (worth around Rs 200 crore) were made by some residents of Gaya while depositing their unaccounted money into bank accounts of poor, the I-T Department has recommended a CBI probe into the matter,” he added.
Published 18 December 2016, 19:44 IST