People bought gold post Uri attack, jewellers to tax dept

Three years after demonetization, a closer scrutiny by the tax department, using data analytics, revealed that many jewellers allegedly deposited cash in the banks much in excess of their known source of income suggesting that they indulged in turning black money into white.

Asked to explain the sudden spike in sales, some of the jewellers claimed that many people were in panic after the Uri attack and subsequent tension between India and Pakistan and hence bought gold as a safer instrument.

A few highlighted cases with mismatched data found in data analytics has shown that during demonetization, some jewellers with income in the returns as low as Rs 5 lakh had deposited cash in crores within two or three days.

One of them with an annual income of Rs 1.16 lakh deposited Rs 4.13 crore in cash in just three days. Another one with annual income of Rs 2.66 lakh deposited Rs 3.28 crore cash in two days.

One of the most interesting cases has emerged from Gujarat where a jeweller under scrutiny was found to have deposited Rs 4.14 crore in cash during the note ban period while his total deposits in the corresponding period of the previous year were a meagre Rs 44,260.

In another modus operandi, jewellers showed advances from various unknown customers in cash below Rs 20,000 each and deposited the same in their bank account. Later, they returned such advance amounts to the same customers without any purpose.

"Also, part payments were made after depositing cash in bank during demonetization and still substantial amount of such creditors was outstanding up to end of the year. The most interesting fact was that while uploading audit report along with Form 3CB before filing return of income, a few did not upload Profit & Loss account of their own but of some other firm," said a finance ministry official.

( With inputs from IANS )