GUWAHATI, April 22 - The Income Tax Directorate has constituted a Special Task Force jointly headed by Subhrajyoti Bhattacharjee, Additional Director & Nodal Officer, and Mrinal Das, Joint Director heading Air Intelligence Units, to investigate thousands of suspicious high value cash deposits and withdrawals in 68 banks operating in the North East.
The Task Force will submit its preliminary findings within one month and strict consequential action as per tax laws will be initiated wherever unexplained cash deposits are found, officials said.
The Directorate is being assisted by the Financial Intelligence Unit of India in this exercise aimed at striking in a decisive manner at the sources and conduits of cash flow during and immediately preceding elections. It will also scrutinise affidavits of all candidates filed before the Election Commission of India for any suppression of declared assets or liability and submit a report to the ECI.
The Directorate has made cash seizures exceeding Rs 8 crore till April 22, which is nearly seven times the previous haul. Cash seizures of Rs 1.21 crore was made by the Income Tax Directorate during election expenditure monitoring for the 2014 elections.
Principal Director of Income Tax Investigation for NER, Sanjay Bahadur attributed this phenomenal outcome to timely preparation for the polls and identification of expenditure sensitive locations in consultation with State authorities and police and to gathering of ground intelligence by Directorate investigators.
Around 150 officials were strategically deployed to set up an extensive network of surveillance units to cover 112 districts and in 12 Air Intelligence Units (AIUs) for interception of unexplained cash.
