New Delhi: The income-tax (IT) department continued its investigation on bank frauds attaching 14 bank accounts of Rotomac group and raided 20 premises of jeweller Mehul Choksi and his firm Gitanjali Gems.
The searches were being conducted in Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and few other cities against 13 companies linked to Choksi and the Gitanjali Gems.
The department has recently attached bank accounts and other assets of Choksi and the Gita-njali Group. These 13 companies are believed to be shell companies as their business is much more than assets.
In the Rotomac Group case, 11 bank accounts in various bank branches in Uttar Pradesh, were atta-ched by the tax officials on Monday night and three were put under similar prohibitory orders last month.
While the 11 accounts, which were frozen last night, are in the name of the Rotomac Group, the rest three are in the name of the Kothari family.
According to sources in IT department, provisional attachment action has been carried out to “recover outstanding tax demands.”
The Kanpur-based group is being probed by the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate in connection with an alleged bank loan fraud of '3,695 crore, given by a consortium of seven banks.
According to a news agency report, the income-tax department on Tuesday issued a notice to Anita Singhvi, the wife of senior Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, asking her to explain about certain jewellery purchases, amounting to Rs 6 crore, allegedly from a showroom owned by Nirav Modi.
The Congress leader refuted the allegations made against his family and described the action as “harassment” being meted out to him as he belonged to an opposition political party.
The notice, said news agency quoting sources, was issued to Anita Singhvi.
