Tax officials recover Rs 157 crore in new and old notes from a Delhi lawyer for the third time

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetization scheme was supposed to flush out the black money in the country but post demonetization many instances of people hoarding money in the new denominations have surfaced.

While the whole country is lining up in front of banks and ATMs, a little known lawyer whom many could not recognise by name in the Supreme Court or the Delhi high court where he claimed to have a "thriving practice" was caught by I-T authorities a third time with a hoard of unaccounted cash, stashed in bundles of banned Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as well as in wads of Rs 2,000, totalling at least Rs 13.48 crore.

During the I-T raids, the I-T team along with Delhi police's crime branch found cabinets and secret chests at Rohit Tandon's office in the upscale GK-1 area filled with notes. Several cartons containing cash were also found.

Tandon was kept under surveillance for about two months, ever since the I-T department made a stunning haul of Rs 125 crore in its first raid on the lawyer on October 7. Sunday's raid was the third on him, the second being two weeks ago and yielding Rs 19 crore in unaccounted income.

Now the I-T team is working on how Tandon managed to collect Rs 2.61crore in newly minted Rs 2,000 notes. Involvement of bank officials has not been ruled out and some top bank functionaries may be arrested.

After the first two searches, Tandon declared Rs 144 crore in unaccounted income. Now after all the searches, the total unaccounted income recovered from the lawyer has touched Rs 157 crore.

The police said Tandon had gone underground. Search is on for him.

Tandon's connections and his financial transactions were still being trailed when I-T officials made another search of his bank lockers and discovered new accounts. The second search led to seizure of Rs 19 crore from banks. The third I-T raids and police searches began on Saturday night and continued through Sunday.