Joda: Sleuths of the Income Tax department conducted simultaneous searches in the offices of Indrani Patnaik mines at Mahaparbat and DR Patnaik mines at Joda Friday. The IT officials checked several documents of these mines. It is suspected that the search operation has been undertaken to unearth huge tax evasions by these two mining firms.
The irregularities at the mines belonging to Indrani Patnaik had come to light recently when the MB Shah Commission and the SC-empowered CEC visited the mines during a probe in connection with a multi-crore mining scam.
It may be noted here that DR Patnaik, husband of Indrani Patnaik, has mines in the Joda mining circle. Earlier, large-scale irregularities allegedly took place in the mines belonging to DR Patnaik. Incidentally, DP Patnaik is the brother of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) chief Niranjan Patnaik.
Meanwhile, acting on the allegations of tax evasion, officials of the Income Tax department conducted sudden raids at the residence and offices of a mine owner at Rourkela in Sundargarh district, Friday.
The raid was conducted after the mines owner, Diptiranjan Patnaik, who owns Indrani Patnaik Mines and Minerals Private Limited in Rourkela, was accused of tax evasion and charged with hoarding cash worth crores.
According to sources, Patnaik not only owns mines in other parts of the state, but also in several regions of the country.
The simultaneous raids were conducted by more than 60 tax officials. The raid team conducted searches at 16 places across the state, including Indrani Patnaik, the owner of the mines company and industrialist, and her husband Dipti Ranjan Patnaik’s residence and offices in the Civil Township area and commercial estate.
Over the past few years, Dipti Ranjan Patnaik has been the highest taxpayer in the state. Besides, simultaneous raids at several offices of the mines in Bhubaneswar, Rourkela, Keonjhar and other places in Joda area were underway till the time of filing this report, sources said.
The exact amount of ‘illegal’ assets unearthed during the raids is yet to be ascertained, sources added.