Hyderabad, March 11 Income Tax (I-T) officials continued searches at the premises of Sri Chaitanya group of educational institutions in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for the second day on Tuesday.
The I-T sleuths were conducting searches at Sri Chaitanya’s corporate office in Madhapur and other offices in Hyderabad and also at premises in different places including Vijayawada, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru.
The officials were checking the fee payment software of the educational institutions following allegations that the group was using dual software to hide certain transactions from the Income Tax Department. There are also allegations that it was collecting fees from parents in cash to evade tax.
The I-T officials reportedly collected nearly Rs 5 crore cash during the raids on Monday.
The officials also verified the income tax returns filed by the management for the past three years. They suspect that the management collected fees from parents and did not furnish the details as sources of income by reportedly diverting funds to their other businesses.
A verification of records of admissions into various courses and colleges was also being done to detect alleged payments in cash
Officials of the Sri Chaitanya group were questioned about the bank accounts, deposits, withdrawals, and expenditures.
They reportedly collected fee details from students’ parents in NEFTs, RTGS payments and cash details.
The I-T Department may serve notices to the management of Sri Chaitanya for questioning them following the raids.
Sri Chaitanya is a leading chain of educational institutions in the Telugu states. It runs 322 schools and an equal number of junior colleges in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. It also has 107 educational institutions in other states.
Founded in 1986 by BS Rao, formerly a physician, and his wife, Jhansi Lakshmi Bai, it has a large chain of schools, junior colleges, hostels, coaching institutions for IT-JEE, NEET, EAMCET and UPSC-CS preparation
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