The Income Tax Department on Thursday said that it has recovered Rs 66 lakh cash from various premises of Rahul Kanal, close aide of Shiv Sena leader and Maharashtra Cabinet Minister of Tourism and Environment, Aaditya Thackeray.

The cash was seized during the searches carried out by the I-T department at 26 different locations belonging to few persons including a cable operator and Rahul Kanal.

The search operations were carried out on 26 premises spread over Mumbai, Pune, Sangli and Ratnagiri.

The IT department didn’t name the person regarding the sale and purchase of the land but said that a parcel of land at Dapoli was purchased by a prominent politician of Maharashtra in 2017 for a consideration of Rs 1 crore but it was got registered in 2019. This land was subsequently sold to one of the persons in 2020 for a consideration of Rs 1.10 crore.

It said that in between, a resort was built on the same land from 2017 to 2020. By the time the parcel of land was registered in the name of the said politician, substantial construction of the resort was completed.

It transpires that the relevant facts about the construction of the resort were not intimated to the Registration authorities and accordingly, the stamp duty was paid only for the registration of land on both the occasions i.e. in 2019 and in 2020. Evidence found during the search has revealed that the construction of the resort started in 2017 and more than Rs 6 crore was spent in cash. Cost of construction of the same has not been accounted for either by the person searched or by the politician in their books of account.

Search in the case of the State Government official has revealed that he, his family members and relatives have amassed huge wealth in the form of properties at prime locations at Pune, Sangli and Baramati, over a period of ten years.

The family owns one bungalow and one farm house in Pune, one lavish farm house in Tasgaon, two bungalows in Sangli, two commercial complexes having Tanishq and Carat lane showrooms, five flats in different locations of Pune, one flat in Navi Mumbai, vacant plots in Sangli, Baramati, Pune and more than 100 acres of agricultural land acquired during the past seven years.

Detailed examination of sources of acquisition of the properties and the amounts spent on the lavish interiors of shops and bungalows is under progress. The family owns many businesses including showrooms of electronic products, Tanishq showrooms, civil construction business, real estate and pipe manufacturing business.

It is found that the construction business, being run by the relatives of the employee, received many contracts from the state government. Search operation has also unearthed evidences of inflated contract expenses through bogus purchase and bogus sub-contracts aggregating to Rs 27 crore. Evidence regarding unaccounted cash receipt of Rs 2 crore in sale of land at Baramati has also been detected. Further investigation with regard to the tax evasion in construction business, is under progress.