Avinash Amarlal Kukreja seeks 15 days to appear before panel

Bengaluru: Financier, businessman and permanent member of the Bowring Institute Avinash Amarlal Kukreja has sought 15 days’ time from the Club to appear before the disciplinary committee and explain the alleged gross lapses on his part. He was to appear before the committee on Tuesday. On July 23, the BI had issued him a show-cause notice to explain why he had illicitly used the three lockers in the badminton court of the Institute and stashed them with alleged ill-gotten wealth including incriminating documents of benami property worth around Rs 800 crore.

The case is being investigated by the Directorate of Income Tax (Investigation), Karnataka & Goa. Honorary Secretary of BI, Srikanth H.S., told Deccan Chronicle that they received a communication from Avnash on Tuesday in response to the notice that was served to him last week for violating the conduct rules of the members of the club. “He has written to us that he had gone to offer prayers at the Tirupati temple and needs 15 days to appear  before the five-member disciplinary committee of the club with all the necessary documents to 
explain his side of the story,” said Mr  Srikanth.

On July 19, a five-member team of senior staff of the club under direction from Srikanth had broken  open three lockers - 69, 71 and 78 – at the badminton court, which were reportedly stashed with cash of Rs 3.90 crore, diamonds worth nearly Rs 8 crore, gold biscuits weighing 650 gm, two top international brand watches – Rolex and Peugeot worth lakhs of rupees and several incriminating property documents of alleged benami properties in Devanahalli and Begur village in Bengaluru worth over Rs 800 crore. One of the bags also reportedly contained several bank cheques of huge amounts; ranging from Rs 5  crore to Rs 50 crore. “There was an entire signed blank cheque book,” said Srikanth.

IT raids on Avnash’s realtor friend?
The Income Tax Department has reportedly conducted search and seizure operations at realtor Prasad Reddy’s residence and office in the city. His office is in Kormangala and he has some projects on Sarjapur Road. He is said to be a business partner of Avnash. The department has, however, not confirmed the raids.