The Income Tax Department has carried out search and seizure operations in two groups engaged in retail sales of jewellery, textiles and home appliances through their popular chain of stores in Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Tirunelveli.

A total of 37 premises were covered in this action.

In the case of the first group, seized documents and other incriminating materials gathered during the course of the search have revealed that the assessee had been actively involved in systematically suppressing sales by manipulating books of accounts, according to a statement of the IT department.

The extent of suppression of sales is found to be more than ?1000 crore, over a period of several years. The search operation has also revealed that the assessee had made unaccounted cash purchases of about ?150 crore in textile division and jewellery division, during the past few years.

In respect of the second group, the department said it seized incriminating material that showed assessee group had obtained bogus bills from a set of parties to the tune of ?80 crore and thereby suppressed taxable income. Evidence relating to the unaccounted purchases of gold have also been gathered.

Besides, the assessee group was found to be debiting inflated making charges of jewellery. In addition, unaccounted rental receipts and the unaccounted scrap sales aggregating to ?7 crore have also been detected, said the department.

The searches on the two groups have led to a seizure of cash of ?10 crore and jewellery/ bullion worth about ?6 crore. Further investigations are under progress.