Tamil Nadu: Taxmen raid Sree Gokulam chit funds

Chennai: Income tax officials conducted searches in 43 places in Tamil Nadu belonging to Sree Gokulam Chit Funds and Finance. Throughout three states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka the taxmen raided nearly 80 locations belong to it on Wednesday. Sree Gokulam Chit Fund is owned by a Chennai-based businessman ‘Gokulam’ Gopalan and his family.

Though the raids come 10 days after the I-T conducted raids on the premises belonging to TN minister Dr C Vijayabhaskar in connection with the cash for vote scam for the RK Nagar poll, income tax officials clarified that Wednesday’s raids have nothing to with April 7 raids at the premises belonging to TN health minister and others.  However, officials are not ruling out the possibilities of the chit fund handling black money belonging to politicians in the state.

Income tax officials estimated that around 500 officials were part of the raids that were carried out across three states. The raids started as early as 5:00 am Wednesday. Raids are still going on at different places. “Sree Gokulam has been under I-T scanner when demonetisation happened. A lot of cash transfer took place through this chit fund after the government scrapped old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. The raids got delayed because the department was busy with other activities,” sources added.