- Raids on Hyderabad-based pharma major reveal unaccounted income of ₹550 crore: I-T dept
HYDERABAD : The income tax department on Saturday claimed to have unearthed unaccounted income to the extent of ₹550 crore and seized unexplained cash amounting to ₹142.87 crore from a Hyderabad-based major pharmaceutical group during a series of raids conducted on Wednesday.
An official release from the income tax department said the pharmaceutical group is engaged in the manufacture of intermediates, Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and formulations. Most of the products are exported to the USA, Europe, Dubai and African countries, the release said.
Though the department did not mention the name of the pharmaceutical group, an official familiar with the development disclosed it as Hetero Drugs, which is the first pharmaceutical company in India to launch the generic version of Remdesivir injection, Covifor, used in the treatment of Covid-19.
The Hetero Group is promoted by B Parthasarathy Reddy, a member of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams trust board. He was also one of the accused in the quid pro quo case being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation against YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
The CBI, in one its charge sheets filed in the court in 2012, charged Parthasarathy Reddy with investing in Jagan’s companies in return for certain favours granted by the AP government during Y S Rajasekhar Reddy regime.
According to the I-T department release, during the search operation, which was carried out at about 50 locations in six states, several bank lockers have been found, out of which 16 lockers have been operated.
“The searches have resulted in seizure of unexplained cash amounting to ₹142.87 crore so far. The unaccounted income unearthed is estimated to be in the range of about ₹550 crore till now,” it said.
During the searches, hideouts were identified where second set of books of accounts and cash were found. Incriminating evidence in the form of digital media, pen drives and documents have been found and seized. Incriminating digital evidences were gathered from the software maintained by the company.
The department said the searches also detected issues relating to discrepancies in purchases made from bogus and non-existent entities and artificial inflation of certain heads of expenditure.
“Further, evidence of on-money payment for purchase of lands was also found. Various other legal issues were also identified such as personal expenses being booked in the company’s books and land purchased by related parties below government registration value,” it said.
Further investigations and quantification of undisclosed income detected is in progress, the release added.
