Raids on Revanth Reddy continue

​Hyderabad: For the first time, Hyderabad is witnessing a different kind of Income-Tax raids. Normally when such raids take place, the IT sleuths seize documents and cash and issue notices to the accused to appear before them for further inquiry. But this time the raids which began on Thursday are continuing for more than 36 hours in the house of TPCC working president A Revanth Reddy.

On Thursday, the IT officials took up search operations at 15 places belonging to Revanth and his family members and relatives’ houses in Hyderabad and Kodangal.

They have been grilling Revanth since Thursday night and were forced to bring him out of the house for couple of minutes following strong protests by his followers. The IT officials had to do this as the situation in front of Revanth’s house was becoming tense. His followers wanted to see Revanth. The IT raids invited criticism from AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu as well. At a press conference, Naidu said that Modi government was known for indulging in political victimisation when elections were around the corner.

Earlier during the day, the IT officials took Revanth’s wife Geeta to three private banks and inspected the lockers owned by her. They seized gold and diamond ornaments. The IT sleuths also brought R S Udaya Simha whose house was raided on Thursday to Revanth’s house in the afternoon and continued their investigation regarding several issues.

The 8-member IT officials team headed by Satish Kumar, Additional Commisssioner of Income Tax were mainly inquiring into the allegations of disproportionate assets to his income, money laundering through different companies and shell companies and tax evasion by not showing all these in IT returns. When Revanth Reddy reached home, the IT officials were inquired on the financial transactions made through his accounts and details regarding their bank accounts and lockers.

IT officials also said to have sought information pertaining to Sri Sai Mourya Estates Company Ltd started by him in 2003. The allegation is that he bought each share per Rs 2 lakh and he invested a total of Rs 66 lakh in that company. Later he floated 19 shell companies from it and made financial transactions for an amount of Rs 200 crore to Rs 300 crore.

After getting the key documents and evidences, the IT officials were said to be quizzing Revanth more into various allegations and were seeking details regarding the property held by him and his family members, properties and company properties and comparing it with the IT returns he and his companies filed.

It is said that in 2010 for the last time, the Sri Sai Mourya Estate company owners filed IT returns. The charge is that Revanth and his wife have stated that together they were getting Rs 13 lakh as annual income but the IT officials said that the couple were repaying housing loan to the tune of Rs 19.20 lakh per annum as their housing EMI. 

They were also seeking the details on the difference. They also seized the computer hard disk and asked Forensic Lab to find out if any data was deleted.

Later the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) team seized the computer and hard disks from his house and the FSL experts were trying to retrieve the data deleted from the computer and hard disks.