IT raids against Hetero labs led to seizure of Rs 142 Cr, detects Rs 550 Cr hidden income

Hyderabad: The Income Tax searches against Hyderabad based Hetero labs led to seizure of Rs 142 Crore. While the estimated amount of unaccounted cash is amounting to be around Rs 550 Crore.

The anti- tax evasion wing of the Income tax department carried out searches against the giant group on 6th of October at 50 locations across 6 states. With Hyderabad being its epicenter.

The Hetero Pharmaceutical group is engaged in the business of manufacturing of intermediates, Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) and formulations. Majority of the products are exported to foreign countries, primarily USA, Europe, Dubai and other African countries.

Fraud:

During the searches, sleuths of Income tax zeroed down on the group's hideouts, where second set of books of accounts and cash were found. The officials seized Incriminating evidence in the form of digital media, pen drives, documents. It is to note that Incriminating digital evidences were gathered from SAP @ ERP software maintained by the assessee group, said the IT officials.

Officials also found discrepancies in purchases made from bogus and non-existent entities (ghost companies) and artificial inflation of certain heads of expenditure were detected.

"Further, evidence of on-money payment for purchase of lands was also found. Various other legal issues were also identified such as personal expenses being booked in the company's books and land purchased by related parties below government registration value, said the officials.

During the search, several bank lockers have been found, out of which 16 lockers have been operated.

Hetero labs limited is represented by directors Parthasaradhi Reddy Bandi, Mohana Reddy Chilukuri, Bandi Vamsikrishna, Srinivas Reddy Male, Attunuri Venkatanarasa Reddy ,Kalavanthi Bandi, Rajasekhara Reddy, Gopal Reddy Annareddy and Rathnakar Reddy Kura. The company in total has 9 directors and one key person.

The longest serving director currently on board is Parthasaradhi Reddy Bandi who was appointed on 05 December, 1996. However Kalavathi Bandi has the largest number of other directorships with a seat at a total of 35 companies. In total, the company is connected to 97 other companies through its directors

The searches comes days after the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2021 ranked the group second richest from Hyderabad. According to the report B. Parthasaradhi Reddy and the family of Hetero Labs with a wealth of Rs. 26,100 crore, are among the top billionaire in the country. His wealth has grown by 88% in a year.