Punjab: I-T raids at all outlets of Gopal Sweets

Police outside one of the outlets in Panchkula. (Express Photo by Jaipal Singh)

Several teams of the Income Tax (IT) department Wednesday conducted raids at different outlets of Gopal Sweets in Chandigarh, Panchkula, Mohali and Patiala besides residences of the owners. The searches started around 9.45am and were still continuing till the filing of this report. “Searches were conducted at 19 places including the outlets and residences of the three owners of the sweet shop. The outlets, which were searched, including three in Chandigarh, three in Patiala, two in Mohali and one in Panchkula and Ambala each. The searches were conducted in the connection of unaccounted income,” said sources in IT department.

Sources further maintained that the sale of different outlets, which were made during the recent festival season, is also being scrutinised. Meanwhile, IT officials have not allowed any kind of commercial activities in the outlets and have shut down the shutters after they raided the outlets. The IT department has also sought the assistance of police authorities. A senior IT department officer said, “The searches were conducted for ascertaining the total sale of outlets which will be tallied with the Income Tax Return (ITR) of the owners of Gopal’s Sweets, which were annually filed by them. Though we have seized several things including cash books, cards etc, but we cannot make any comment on the conclusion of searches.”

One of the officials, who was the part of a search team in Patiala, said that the raid was conducted on the directions of Additional Director Income Tax (investigations) Manish Sareen. The residences of owners at Chandigarh and Patiala were also searched. In Ludhiana, the raid ended by evening and the outlet was open for public late evening.