Three Mumbai Brokers Raided Over Tax Evasion

The income-tax (I-T) department yesterday raided the premises of three leading broking houses of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Highly placed sources in the I-T department said the raids were conducted in connection with tax evasions in recent assessment years.

The broking houses which were raided by the I-T department were Narveram Harakchand (NH) Group, a partnership firm, and NH Securities, the broking arm of the group. Raids were conducted at the premises of Nirmal M Bang, a sharebroker, too.

I-T officials told Business Standard that raids were conducted in 12 office premises and residential apartments in Fort area. The officials, however, refused to divulged details of the tax evasion charges.

 

"The details of the raid and tax evasion will be known in another two days," said a source. Unofficial sources, however, put the amount of tax evasion by the three firms at nearly Rs 50 crore.

The department has taken posession of certain documents and recovered data from the computer systems after raiding the firms.

The companies are suspected to have engaged in I-T evasion by different modes, said the officials and added these raids were conducted in respect to the past one-two assessment years.

The NH Group is run by Vinay Chandra Parekh and his two sons, Ketan V Parekh and Kirti V Parekh.

The Parekhs are partners in the company while they serve as directors with NH Securities. Nirmal M Bang has been identified as a key speculator who is closely associated with the NH Group.

The department recently raided the Chintamani Group headed by Arun Kaigaonkar. The firm has a jewellery showroom at Prabhadevi in Mumbai, while it runs a showroom in Thane through an associate firm, Chintamani Jewellers.

The searches are continuing but the group has already admitted to tax evasion to the tune of Rs 2 crore. The I-T sleuths have also searched the premises of Nitin Kadam, an associate of the group.

The I-T officials did not rule out the possibility of further raids in the days to come.

Though the broking community was baffled by these raids, the market did not react in panic with the BSE Sensex closing 16 points higher than the previous close.

The trading sentiment remained firm though the volumes dipped at the bourses.