Kanpur-based businessman Piyush Jain has asked the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) to return the huge stash of cash seized from his premises after deducting tax and penalty.
Jain was arrested on charges of tax evasion and is presently in 14-day judicial custody.
Special Public Prosecutor Amrish Tandon, who represents DGGI, informed a court on Wednesday that Piyush Jain has revealed that he evaded tax and owes a penalty amounting to Rs 52 crore.
The lawyer for Piyush Jain, however, asked the court to instruct DGGI to deduct the Rs 52 crore owed by the trader as a penalty and return the remaining amount.
Tandon responded by saying that the recovered amount was proceeds of tax evasion and will not be returned. If Jain wants to pay an additional Rs 52 crore as a penalty, then DGGI will accept it, he stated.
In one of the biggest seizures in history, the DGGI seized over Rs 195 crore in cash, 23 kilograms of gold and sandalwood oil worth Rs 6 crore during raids at several premises linked to Jain in Kanpur and Kannauj.
The officials searched the residential premises of Piyush Jain, partner of Odochem Industries, in Kanpur and seized unaccounted cash to the tune of Rs 177.45 crore.
The DGGI officers searched the residential and factory premises of Odochem Industries in Kannauj and seized Rs 17 crore in cash during a 120-hour raid.
To count such a huge amount of cash, the DGGI officials sought help from the officials of the State Bank of India (SBI) and their currency counting machines. The money has been deposited in the State Bank of India (SBI) and will be held by the Government of India, Tandon told the court.
His arrest, meanwhile, has stirred up a political storm in the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh with the ruling BJP and the Samajwadi Party exchanging barbs over the staggering recovery of Rs 195 crore in currency notes seized from premises owned by Piyush Jain.
The Congress, meanwhile, has accused the DGGI of diluting the case by claiming that the recovered money was a turnover amount.