Chennai: Forty places, including residences, educational institutions and offices of liquor and other firms, owned by former Union Minister S Jagathrakshakan of the DMK were raided by sleuths from Income Tax Department on Wednesday in connection with suspected tax evasion.
The raids, which began at 40 locations in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry at 7 am on Wednesday, were continuing late in the evening as more than 120 IT men were pressed into the job. The sleuths also raided the Adyar residence of Mr Jagathrakshakan, a two-time Lok Sabha MP from Arakkonam constituency, after restricting the entry of outsiders.
Sources said telephone lines were disconnected at the former MP’s residence and the raids continued for more than 12 hours at almost all locations. “No one was allowed inside the premises from outside ever since the raids began in the morning,” a source said.
“We have seized huge quantity of cash running to many crores of rupees. We are yet to ascertain the quantity of unaccounted money,” an income tax official said, refusing to divulge further information on the raid.
The simultaneous raids were being conducted in his residences, office premises and his five-star hotel in T.Nagar, the shopping district of Chennai, and several colleges run by him. A distillery unit in Villupuram managed by him was also raided.
The former Union Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting and his family members manage at least a dozen colleges including Balaji Dental College and Bharath University in Selaiyur in Tambaram on the outskirts of the city.
Several incriminating documents were also seized during the raids being conducted by more than 120 taxmen, but no additional details on the nature of documents were available.
This is not the first time that Mr Jagathrakshakan is in the news for wrong reasons. He was embroiled in the coal scam controversy as Opposition alleged that he used his political clout to get coal allocation through illegal means for his company in 2007. He was Arakkonam MP during 1999-2004 and 2009-2014.
