This seems to be the season of bogus claims under the Income Disclosure Scheme of the Central Government.
One more such case has come to light in Hyderabad where a person B lakshman Rao has claimed that he had unaccounted wealth of Rs 9,800 crore. The Income Tax department officials raided his house in Filmnagar area and questioned lakshman Rao.
Sources said that the raids were carried out after he failed to pay the first installment of his taxes on the declared black money.
Apart from searching his premises for several hours the officials asked him that if his claim was correct then why he had failed to pay the first instalment under the IDS.
The IT authorities also raided the house and the office of lakshman Rao’s auditor lakshmi Narayana but found nothing to corroborate the claim. The auditor was untraceable and the IT officials were searching for him.
The IT authorities were surprised to know that lakshman Rao owed money to many people including Rs 20,000 to his mason. Though his residence had a security guard, he complained to the media person that he was not paid his wages for the last two weeks.
His neighbour said that lakshman Rao was staying in the house since last eight months and were surprised to know about his claims and the raids by the IT department. Speculations were rife that he could be a front for some other rich and powerful people.
IT officials estimated that lakshman Rao’s business turnover could not be more than Rs 5 to Rs 10 crore.
The IT also received another claim from one more resident of Hyderabad. The person, identified as Bakhshi claimed that he had black money of Rs 3,000 crore. But this also turned out to be a red herring and IT officials described it as a baseless claim. Bakhshi was untraceable.