Amritsar, November 7
For the second consecutive day, the high powered four teams of the Excise and Taxation Department today conducted raids on big business houses in Tarn Taran and Amritsar, detecting tax evasion and irregularities worth several crores.
The raids were conducted on the directions of Mr D.P. Reddy, Commissioner, Excise and Taxation, to unearth goods purchased and sold without proper documents. The raiding teams impounded computers, books, stocks and incriminating documents.
The business houses which were raided today included Arora Lighting House, Ashwani Enterprises and North Industries (Ajnala), Butter Engineering Company, Diamond Steel Products Prince Steels, Miglani Paper Mills, Sukhwinder Industries, Veer Enterprises and Dass Rice Sheller (Tarn Taran).
The raiding parties were separately conducted by Mr Kuldip Kumar, Additional Commissioner, Mr Avtar Singh, Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Mr AK Sharma, Joint Director, and Ms Kanchan Chawla, Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner.
Meanwhile, Mr D.P. Reddy has directed his staff not to allow the use of private army by the liquor contractors which had been harassing the common man. Mr Reddy said he had received confirmed reports that the ‘liquor mafia’ had engaged a parallel force for filing ‘false cases’ against their business rivals and individuals. The Commissioner said the department had clamped down on the illegal vends on the highways and filed an affidavit in the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had taken suo moto notice of the news item published in these columns.
Mr Sardul Singh, Excise and Taxation Minister, said the state government had launched a major crackdown on transport companies who were bringing in goods without documents and managed to unearth large stocks. He said the state had taken a decision to introduce self-assessments by the assessees and a notification to this effect would be issued shortly.
