Barely hours after Union Home Minister Amit Shah had directed the State Government to focus on cases of rampant corruption by the ‘high and mighty’ in the State, joint teams of Income Tax officers and Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) conducted surprise raids at multiple locations of former State Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather and his son Hilal Ahmad Rather, in Jammu and Srinagar early Thursday morning.
The Income Tax Department conducted search and seizure operations covering 4 premises in the Kashmir Valley and 6 places in the Jammu region.
Late in the evening, Anti Corruption Bureau in a press statement said, “they have formally booked the management, officers & officials of the J&K bank along with the illegal beneficiaries involved in financial irregularities/loan fraud worth crores of rupees and also conducted searches at various locations”.
There were allegations of large scale diversion and misappropriation of loan taken from J&K Bank by the violator .
Apart from the premises in J&K, 10 other business premises situated in Ludhiana, NCR and Jammu belonging to parties that have actively assisted the main tax evader in concealing his income and indulging in illegal activities have also been covered under survey action.
During the search, it was detected that the tax evader has been given illegal benefit of Rs 60 crore by J&K Bank.
Official sources said, “his outstanding loan of Rs 190 crore was settled at Rs 130 crore, although he did not deserve any concessional treatment”.
Press statement issued by the Income Tax department also revealed, “even the reduced bank liability has either been defaulted by him or the repayment has been facilitated by active connivance of bank officials, who have ever greened his loan account by lending to third parties, who, in turn, gave their loaned funds to the tax evader through dubious financial transactions with him”.