Old currency seized from Reddy as valuable as new

Senior Income Tax officials who have been unearthing the stacked up assets from the houses and official premises of Sekhar Reddy, his associates Srinivasa Reddy and Prem Reddy, told DTNext that since the deposit of old currency to the bank accounts is valid till December 31, the amount seized will be treated on par with the new currency. 

“We have not received any direction regarding value of any such seizure after December 31. But we believe that it would be valued on par with the new currency even after the seizures are made beyond December 31,” a senior IT official said. In the continuing treasure hunt, the IT officials have recovered Rs. one crore more from Sekhar Reddy’s relative’s house in Vellore on Sunday. These currency notes were of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations, officials said. Sekhar Reddy had been planning either to deposit these amounts to various bank accounts or to get them exchanged to new currency with the connivance of bank staff. 

“If he could get 34 crore worth new currency, then he would be capable of converting this huge amount of demonetized currency,” the official added. Meanwhile, IT Sources said that the senior IAS officer, who is said to be the original owner of most of the money seized from Sekhar Reddy, may escape without a case being booked against him. 

“When a seizure is made from a person, the government’s primary assumption is that the money belongs to the person from who it has been seized. Otherwise the person should tell the investigators that the money actually does not belong to him. In this case, we doubt Sekhar Reddy will ever say that,” the official added. 

He said Sekhar Reddy, who holds the licence for sand quarrying across Tamil Nadu, has no problem to show the source of such large quantities of money and thus can absolve his investor from trouble. 

“However, we are not actually begun the scrutiny of the seized documents and investigation in to the case. We are now only hunting for the undeclared assets concealed in various parts by Sekhar Reddy and the material evidences. Once we finish that, we will begin the scrutiny and investigation in to the case. So if there are some documents that clearly suggest the connection, the IAS officer could also be taken to task,” another IT official said. The large amount of cash and gold, which is the largest seizure in the country during a single operation, has become a huge security risk for the Income Tax department. The assets, Rs 132.1 crore in cash and 177 kg of gold, are now being kept at undisclosed strong rooms after counting and calculating. 

Manpower shortage in the IT investigation wing is also causing trouble as they could not verify many of the seized documents in time as the available manpower is being dedicated for the continuing raids. 

“We have now locked them up so that nobody has access to them. We will start the process of verification only after the raids,” the official added.