Whenever Income Tax raids happen in places belonging to high-profile people, so many bytes – sound, ink and digital – splash all around and generate anxiety as well as excitement. The media goes into an overdrive covering the raids from ground zero and report for the next few days collecting whatever information their staff can siphon off from the tight-lipped horses’ mouth (the I-T officers) and filling in the blanks with both their imagination and the standard I-T protocol / phraseology (so and so and their family members were grilled for over six hours; several incriminating documents and a flash disk containing virus, nay…. several offshore and Swiss bank account details were confiscated!).
Invariably, in all such high octane cases, political motives are ascribed to the raids and curiously though, one rarely comes to read, listen or view the sequels (what happened next ?) to the raids. Caught in the crossfire between the raided bigwigs, the politicos and news-hungry media are foot-soldiers of the I-T department who go about discharging their duties like true karma yogis, despite facing several challenges.
Many a low-profile raid go unreported and quite naturally so in view of the substantial number of such cases. A few months ago, officers from the I-T department swooped down on a house of an uncle of mine. Uncle is a retired official and lives alone in an ancestral home. He lives a very simple, frugal life-using the most economical modes of transport for local and outstation commute, self-cooking performing his prayers sincerely.
The officers informed uncle that they wanted to conduct a search operation in his house and asked him to sign the department’s papers. Unperturbed, like a smiling Buddha, he asked them, “Have you come for the Rs 67 lakhs case?” Taken aback, they replied, “Of course, yes. But how do you know?” They could have suspected an insider leak about their operation.
Uncle told them that he had already clarified the issue through his auditor when the I-T department served him a letter asking him to explain a high value deposit of Rs 67 lakhs in his account post demonetisation. He showed them the supporting documents. Looking at those papers with disappointment writ large on their faces.
Uncle’s auditor was summoned and one of the I-T officers went to the nationalised bank where the unexplained ‘Rs 67 lakhs’ was found to be deposited in uncle’s bank account. The bank manager said that uncle’s record was very clean and they had wrongly reported his account number for a deposit of Rs 67 lakhs made by an institution in their account. Hence the mix-up and resultant confusion.
“We’re very sorry for this slip, Sir. Our apologies for the inconvenience,” declared the I-T sleuths and left my uncle’s house after four hours of ‘grilling’ whereupon uncle resumed his routine from where he left it when the raid began – cooking his food, as if nothing ever happened. ‘Those who have nothing to hide need not be scared’ – How true!
