LUCKNOW: Kanpur-based businessman Piyush Jain was sent to jail on a 14-day remand by Kanpur magistrate Yogita Kumar on Monday.
The sleuths of the Ahme-dabad unit of Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) arrested Jain on Sunday under Section 67 of CGST Act, following the recovery of Rs 284 crore from his Kanpur and Kannauj residences. The searches continued on Monday as well.
As the DGGI team sought Jain’s remand, the court ordered to send him to jail under Section 132 of the CGST Act, confirmed the Special Public Prosecutor, Amrish Tandon.
According to the DGGI sources, the searches, which started on Friday, led to the seizure of unaccounted cash to the tune of Rs 177.45 crore from Jain’s Anandnagar house in Kanpur and over Rs 107 crore from his ancestral house in Kannauj, the city of perfumes. However, the DGGI team is yet to confirm the recovered amount.
The raiding agency claimed that Jain had admitted that cash recovered from his premises was related to the sale of goods without payment of taxes. However, the DGGST team had got a case of tax evasion of Rs 31.50 crore registered against the trader.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday said the recovery of a huge amount of cash in a raid by taxation agencies has revealed why the SP and BSP leaders were scared of the 2016 demonetisation by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Adityanath made the remark while addressing a rally at Sitapur and referring to the recovery of a huge amount of cash from the house of Kanpur businessman Piyush Jain, whom the BJP accuses of being close to Samajwadi Party, which, in turn, has been stoutly refuting the charge.
"I had heard, seen and thought that the goddess Laxmi visits us on Deepawali. But these sinners had imprisoned (the goddess) in walls. Didn't you see in Samajwadi Party leaders' houses with goddess Laxmi emerging from their walls?" Adityanath told the rally.
"Bundle of notes, uncountable bundles of notes, (are) still being counted for the third day with the people counting them (having got) exhausted," the chief minister said, referring to the recovery of bundles of currency notes in raids by the taxation sleuths at Jain's house in Kanpur.
"Brothers and sisters, now you would have understood why the Bua and Babua had been opposing demonetisation," the chief minister said, apparently referring to BSP supremo Mayawati as 'Bua' and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav as 'Babua'.
The chief minister made the remarks in his Sitapur rally, shortly before the Union Finance Ministry gave details of the recent searches on perfume trader Piyush Jain's house in Kanpur from where GST officers had seized more than Rs 177 crore unaccounted cash from his house.
The searches going on since December 22, which resulted in Jain's arrest, also included those at the trader's residential and factory premises in Kannauj, where about Rs 17 crore in cash, 23 kg of gold and 600 kg of sandalwood oil with a market value of about Rs 6 crore were recovered, the ministry said in a release.
Further searches are underway at Jain's residential and factory premises in Kannauj.
In Sitapur, Adityanath also inaugurated the completed projects and laid foundation stones of new ones, totalling worth Rs 116 crore, besides addressing the rally as part of the BJP's poll campaign Jan Vishvas Yatra.
A day after holding a programme for distributing laptops and mobile phones to UP students, the chief minister also targeted Yadav for often saying that Adityanath was not distributing these gadgets to students because he himself does not know how to operate even a mobile phone.
"The new worry for the Babua' is why tablets and smartphones are being given to youths.
How can the Samajwadi tolerate this? For them, the family was the state, but for us, the state is the family," the chief minister said.
The chief minister also told the rally that soon his government will start giving appointment letters to over five lakh youths recruited in various government departments in UP.
"I have told officials that I may not be having time to give these letters personally, so start sending them to the youths yourself," he said, apparently referring to his heavy engagements ahead of the upcoming UP assembly elections.
UP Chief Minister also inaugurated completed projects and laid foundation stones of new ones, totalling worth Rs 554 crores in Pratapgarh, the UP BJP said in a statement here.
Hitting out at the opposition, Adityanath said in Partapgarh, "Today, there are three parties. One is of brother and sister (apparently referring to the Congress), then there is a party of Bua and another of Babua."
Referring apparently to Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Yadav, the chief minister specially targeted the SP, saying "The chacha-bhatija duo used to indulge in brawl ('maarpeet') on the stage itself."
"Earlier, there were riots every third day. But, they (rioters) know today that if they indulge in riots, their seven generations have to pay the fine."
Referring to his government's work in the state, the chief minister said, "A solid work is done when the intention is honest."
Referring to the BJP's poll symbol lotus, Adityanath said, "The lotus will bloom because it symbolises welfare."
He also said the Congress, SP and BSP have ruled for a long time, but they never conceptualised development.
"The Congress should be asked why it did not build a hospital in Pratapgarh in five-and-half decades of its rule. The same question should be asked to the SP and BSP," he said.
"We have fulfilled what we promised. People who remained absent for 20 months during the COVID-19 pandemic, cannot claim their rights over your votes. They were in home quarantine and they should be quarantined in the upcoming elections as well," Adityanath said.
An advocate has accused Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, his brother Prateek and other close aides of launching bogus companies, and carrying out transactions worth crores of rupees.
The Samajwadi Party has refuted the charges, saying these were "sponsored" by the BJP.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday, advocate Vishvanath Chaturvedi alleged that Akhilesh Yadav, his brother Prateek and people close to him were in touch with mafia Chhota Shakeel.
Chaturvedi said in the Samajwadi Party government, there are proofs that "benami" properties were bought using 16 bogus companies and there were transactions worth crores of rupees.
Details regarding this were given to the Income Tax Department a year ago but no action has been taken so far, he said.
Chaturvedi said 16 companies were registered on one address and a mobile number, and there are details about their transactions in crores.
He urged the prime minister to initiate stringent action in this regard.
He alleged that Piscesia Power Transmission Pvt Ltd and Monal Infraproject prospered when Akhilesh Yadav was the chief minister and they also transacted business with Chhota Shakeel in Dubai.
Meanwhile, SP's chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said the allegations levelled by Chaturvedi are "sponsored" by the BJP.
He added that the ruling party is completely aware that it is going to face defeat in the upcoming UP Assembly elections, hence it is defaming the SP chief and people who are close to him.
Chaudhary said Chaturvedi's sudden appearance in the media and giving statements when elections are near raises doubts.
Chaturvedi, who had filed a disproportionate assets case against Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav, on Wednesday put the central government also in the dock for not sending the duo to jail.
"If the government really wants to take action against the corrupt, then it should be taken against the entire Mulayam Singh Yadav family instead of raiding places of their close ones," Chaturvedi had said at a press conference here.
He was alluding to income tax raids recently on a senior SP leader and three others, allegedly close associates of Akhilesh Yadav.
(With PTI Inputs)