Documents Recovered From Ex-Swc Official Residence

Income-tax authorities have broken open the seal of the Calcutta residence of former Shaw Wallace executive director P L Narsimhan and taken into custody several documents and diaries recovered from the premises.

A senior department source told Business Standard that Narsimhan, who is now indisposed in Hyderabad, had sent an authorised person to witness the unsealing of his residence from Hyderabad.

The diaries and documents recovered from Narsimhan's residence are under scrutiny by the I-T department's investigation wing.

Investigation work had been held up because the SWC director was unable to come to Calcutta and witness the breaking of the seal of his residence on account of his health. Narsimhan's residence is the last of the company's premises to be unsealed by the department in Calcutta.

The residential quarters of the director at Ballygunj Circular Road had been sealed six weeks ago, when the department had conducted raids on the offices of Shaw Wallace and residences of senior company executives simultaneously in Calcutta, New Delhi, Mumbai and Aurangabad.

Meanwhile, a team of income-tax officers will travel to Hyderabad later this week to interrogate Narsimhan who, officials say, is a "key player" in most dubious transactions made by the company. Narsimhan was in charge of Shaw Wallace's finances of the company.

Owing to the enormity of the task of putting together facts and evidence from various documents, the department may ask the government for an extension of about a month for completing the general appraisal report on the raids.

Normally, an appraisal report is prepared within 60 days of the commencement of searches. In the case of Shaw Wallace, the report is meant to be completed by October 20.

However, the report will now be ready by mid-November as the departments in New Delhi, Mumbai and Aurangabad are still to submit their preliminary reports to the Calcutta office, where the final data will be compiled.

This week, the enforcement directorate is expected to receive the last consignment of documents from the IT department for investigating possible violations of the Foreign Exchange Regulations Act.