Yamunanagar: The Income Tax Department raided the residence and factory of plywood businessman Surendra Garg and his partner Pradeep Kumar having three manufacturing units in Yamunanagar continued for 72 hours. Police also recovered 81 bottles of foreign liquor of value worth crores from Pradeep Kumar’s residence in Model Town area, but no record could be found about this liquor. The Enforcement Bureau team has seized it. A case has been registered against Pradeep Kumar for keeping illegal liquor. Documents of transactions worth crores of rupees, mobiles and laptops were seized from Surendra Garg’s residence. The Income Tax Department also recovered some cash. Income tax team took away the mobile, laptop and documents. The case filed against Pradeep Garg in an illicit liquor case, documents recovered.
The police booked the proprietors/managers of three plywood factories of the district for allegedly deterring public servants from discharging their duty. The cases were registered after the proprietors of the factories allegedly didn’t cooperate with the raiding team including the members of a team of the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, who along with local officers of the Agriculture Department had conducted raids at six plywood units in the district. The raids were conducted to probe the use of agriculture grade subsidised urea illegally.This is how it came on the radar of the Income Tax Department. Earlier they used to do business in the name of Bhagwati. Surendra Garg also has a business in Panchkula. He built flats in collaboration with Sushma Builder. After which he came on the radar of the Income Tax Department. This raid was also conducted at his Panchkula residence.
At the time of the raid, Surendra Garg and Pradeep were not present at home or in the factory. As soon as they came to know about the raid, they went underground. However, the Income Tax Department team recovered documents related to transactions from their residence and factory. Electronic records have also been taken. Passbooks of different bank accounts have been found. These have been seized by the Income Tax Department. Inspector Shyam Sundar of the Enforcement Bureau said that he was informed by the Excise Department about recovery of wine bottles when he reached Pradeep Kumar’s residence from where 81 bottles of liquor were found. Even the servant found at his residence could not tell anything about them, as such a case has been registered against Pradeep under the Excise Act. Attempts were made to contact Pradeep and Surendra Garg but their numbers were switched off.
Meanwhile, Jaswinder Singh Saini, Deputy Director of Agriculture Department, Yamunanagar, said, six teams conducted raids at six plywood factories here on Friday a day earlier. He said on the complaint of the Agriculture Department officers, two separate FIRs were registered against three plywood factories allegedly not cooperating during the raid and providing documents demanded by the teams. He further said three other factories were issued notices and samples of technical grade urea and of glue were taken from all six factories, have been handed over to the officers of the Central Fertiliser Laboratory, Faridabad.
