Liquor baron Ponty Chadha today refuted reports that cash to the tune of Rs 100 crore has been seized from a mall owned by him in Noida near here during searches carried out by the Income Tax officials. In a statement, Wave Infratech owned by him said widespread rumours and wrong information have been circulated to tarnish the image of the group with “malafide intention”.
Denying allegations of tax evasion, it said Chadha’s group of companies have been regularly paying taxes and meeting other statutory requirements.
“The activities of the group relate purely to business and none of the companies/concerns have any affiliation or association with any political person or party,” the statement said.
It said Income Tax officials, who visited the basement floor of Centre Stage Mall, did not find any cash from a safe lying there, contrary to reports that Rs 100 crore or about have been found and seized from the safe.
“There is no income which remains undisclosed to the government authorities,” it said adding that the Chadha Group was extending full cooperation and assistance to the IT officials.
Authorities raid office of UP liquor baron Ponty Chadha
Authorities raided the office of liquor baron Ponty Chaddha here and recovered firearms, a safe and two machines used for counting notes.
The raid was carried out on the directives of district magistrate Raj Shekhar last night at the Vivekabad colony office of Chaddha, official sources said.
One Sukhdev Singh, who was present there, said that the key of the recovered safe was with the manager, the sources said adding that eight rifles and two machines used for counting votes were recovered from the premises.
The raiding team visited the office again this morning and sealed the safe which was found to be having currency notes and took Singh in custody.
The Income Tax department on Wednesday raided Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati’s favourite businessman, carrying out simultaneous searches at 19 of his premises in the state and Delhi.
The raids, in Lucknow, Moradabad and Noida among other places in UP, and on his farmhouse-home in Delhi’s Chhattarpur and premises in Lajpat Nagar, began at 10.30 am and were ongoing till late on Wednesday night. I-T officials said teams had been sent to Chandigarh and Punjab, where Chadha has extensive liquor and realty businesses.
The action against Chadha, the first by a central agency, comes just a week before the first phase of polling in UP, and ahead of his daughter’s wedding, planned at the Chhattarpur farmhouse on February 9 and 10.
