Hetero in trouble as I-T raids yield Rs 550 cr

New Delhi: The Income Tax Department detected "unaccounted" income of Rs 550 crore and seized over Rs 142 crore cash after it recently raided Hyderabad-based Hetero pharmaceutical group, official sources claimed on Saturday.

Company officials were not immediately available for comments.

The raids were carried out by the tax department on October 6 at about 50 locations in half-a-dozen states. "During the search, several bank lockers have been found, out of which 16 lockers have been operated. The searches have resulted in the seizure of unexplained cash amounting to Rs 142.87 crore, so far," the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a statement.

"Unaccounted income unearthed is estimated to be in the range of about Rs 550 crore till now," it said.

Official sources identified it as the Hetero pharma group of Hyderabad.

Further investigations and quantification of undisclosed income detected is in progress, it added. The CBDT frames policy for the Income Tax Department.

The CBDT said the group is engaged in the business of manufacturing of intermediates, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and formulations and majority of the products are exported to countries like the US and Dubai, and some African and European countries.

"Issues relating to discrepancies in purchases made from bogus and non-existent entities and artificial inflation of certain heads of expenditure were detected. Further, evidence of on-money payment for purchase of lands was also found," it claimed.

Various other legal issues were also identified such as personal expenses being booked in the company's books and land purchased by related parties "below government registration value." It alleged that hideouts were identified during the raids where second set of books of accounts and cash were found.