The Income Tax (IT) department has provisionally seized assets related to the family of Maharashtra lawmaker CM Ajit Pawar under the 1988 Benami Land Transactions Prohibition Act, sources said. The tax administration has tentatively attached Jarandeshwar Sahakari Sugar Karkhana (Jarandeshwar SSK) to Maharashtra, a complex in Goa, an apartment in an upscale locality of Delhi, and an office in Nirmal Tower in southern Mumbai, among others.
On October 7, the tax agency raided a business where Pawar’s son Parth is a manager; some businesses owned by the Pawar sisters; two real estate companies linked to Pawar; and the offices of directors of four sugar factories across the state who are said to be indirectly linked to the Pawar family.
Subsequently, on October 15, the tax agency said it had discovered unrecorded income worth Rs 184 crore after his searches of the premises of two real estate groups in Mumbai linked to Ajit Pawar’s family.
The tax administration said the two real estate companies injected unrecorded funds into several companies through “suspicious” transactions with “the involvement of an influential family from Maharashtra.”
The IT department has reportedly identified transactions of these groups of companies with a network of companies that appear “suspicious”. He said the companies introduced unrecorded funds into the group “through various dubious methods such as introducing bogus issue premiums, suspicious unsecured loans, receiving an unwarranted advance for some. services, collusive arbitration agreements on non-existent disputes “.
