Feb.17, 2010, 05.13am IST
In an early morning swoop, the income tax (I-T) department raided the residential premises of Jay Shanker Tiwari and H B Lal in Patna on Tuesday. Five other premises in Patna and Ara, including a nursing home-cum-pathological laboratory in Raza Bazaar locality, here, were raided by the I-T teams, too, sources said.
The raids were part of the nationwide search conducted in 37 premises spread over the four states of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Maharashtra in connection with the money laundering scam in which former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda and his close aides, Binod Kumar Sinha and Sanjay Choudhary, are the prime accused.
Tiwari, a retired Jharkhand cadre IAS officer, was the state mines secretary and Lal, chairman of Jharkhand State Electricity Board. I-T teams raided Tiwari’s Kankerbagh residence and that of Lal in Patel Nagar, sources said. Raids began around 7 am and search operation was still on till the filing of this report.
As many as seven teams, one headed by an officer of the rank of assistant commissioner and six officials of the rank of income tax official, were involved in the raids in Bihar.
Other places where raids were conducted were Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Chaibasa, Noamundi, Barajamda and Gua in Jharkhand; Kolkata in West Bengal and Mumbai in Maharashtra.
Keeping the sensitive nature of the case in mind, I-T sources said the department had roped in the services of central paramilitary forces, who accompanied the raiding party during its search operations in Chaibasa. “As the place is a Koda stronghold and there is a Naxalite threat as well, the department opted for the CPMF personnel,” said a source.
Incidentally, none of the senior I-T officials was available to share the outcome of the raids conducted in the seven premises in Bihar.
While I-T’s Bihar and Jharkhand director (investigation) Ujjwal Choudhary was not available at the headquarters, director-general Anjani Kumar refused to talk to the press. “Sir will not be able to meet anyone as he is pre-occupied with some urgent work,” a Kumar aide said.