BJP Rajya Sabha MP Kirodi Lal Meena had alleged that there are Rs 500 crore and 50 kg of unaccountable gold stashed in 100 lockers in the basement of Ganpati Plaza, a commercial complex in Jaipur. Meena claimed that these money are linked to various scams in Rajasthan including paper leak, DoIT and Jal Jeevan Mission. Following the allegations, Directorate of Enforcement (ED) and Income Tax department conducted search operation in these lockers. While ED could not find anything substantial in these lockers and returned empty handed on Sunday, I-T department continued their search and recovered cash more than Rs 1.25 crore and one Kg gold from two lockers.
“The locker in which cash has been recovered is in the name of one Idrish Hasan while the other locker where gold was found belongs to one Kartik Koolwal. We are trying to find whereabouts of both the owners,” said an official of I-T department.
The recovery of unaccounted wealth has raised hopes of I-T department of recovering more money from these lockers
“There are 1,100 lockers in the basement. Out of which 540 are inoperative. There are many lockers whose names and addresses are not found. We will continue the operation till we check all the lockers. If the owners don't come forward we will break the lock after taking due permission,” said an I-T official.
The official said that people use modus operandi of issuing lockers in the name of servants and then they remove servants from the jobs while continuing to operate the lockers hassle free.
“If any raid or search happen, officials are unable to locate the owners and they go scotfree . Their only loss is their black money,” the official added.
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