Day after raids on Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary, son's office searched by IT

Chennai: A day after Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary P Rama Mohana Rao’s residence and office were raided by the Income Tax officials, his son’s office was raided on Thursday morning.

On Wednesday, Income Tax raids sent shock waves across the corridors of power as sleuths swooped down on the home of P. Rama Mohana Rao. I-T officials raided his house in Anna Nagar as well as his office at the secretariat.

Handpicked for the top job by the former Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, Mr Rao  superseded 17 IAS officers to become the top babu, but Mr Rao had seemed to come off in poor light as significant seizures were made at the home of his kin — at least Rs 30 lakh cash and 5 kg gold.

As many as 13 premises belonging to the chief secretary, his son and relatives in Nellore and Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh and in Karnataka were searched leading to more seizure of cash and gold across south India.

The raids, which began at the crack of dawn, at around 5.45 am, at Mr Rao’s residence in Anna Nagar and continued till late into the evening, were conducted in connection with suspected amassing of wealth disproportionate to the known sources of income and tax evasion. Mr Rao suffers the ignominy of being the first Chief Secretary of a state to be raided by the I-T department.

Sources in I-T department said the raids on Mr Rao came after their interrogation of former TTD Board member Sekhar Reddy and seizure of Rs 131 crore cash and 177 kg gold from premises belonging to him two weeks back. Deccan Chronicle had on December 9 reported that Mr Reddy was linked to a top bureaucrat at the Fort St George and that Mr Reddy was his benami.

Rao’s office at the Secretariat, the seat of power of the TN Government, was also not spared as I-T sleuths raided his chamber for close to five hours.