I-T raid on DFO's house, office continues on second day

Bhubaneswar: Income Tax (IT) officials continued their raid at the house and office of Khariar Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Sarat Chandra Panda on the second day today.

Panda is booked under charges of tax evasion.

The house of Panda at Gouri Nagar in Bhubaneswar and another house at Anantapur under Soro block in Balasore district are being searched by the IT officials who had found evidences of more properties disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Panda was allegedly of evading Income Tax and converting black money to white. Acting on the complaint, the I-T officials had conducted simultaneous raid on the office of Panda in Khariar and his private residence at Gouri Nagar in Bhubaneswar. During the raid, it was found out that after demonetisation he had deposited money amounting to some crores in different accounts. Besides, he has not filed his income tax return in the current fiscal year.

Panda was not able to give an adequate answer about the source of such large amount of money, the reason behind his not filing I-T return and how he was able to produce two PAN cards in his name.