I-T raids popular food chains in TN, Kannada film industry bigwigs

CHENNAI/BENGALURU: The Income Tax department conducted searches at the premises of four Kannada film actors and three producers in Bengaluru and at over two dozen premises of popular hotel and restaurant chains in Tamil Nadu, for alleged tax evasion.

About 30 teams of the I-T department conducted simultaneous searches in the premises of the Kannada film industry persons across Bengaluru, whereas in Chennai, raids were being carried out at 32 locations of restaurants including Saravana Bhavan, Hot Breads, Anjappar and Grand Sweets. The residences and offices of the directors of these food joint chains are being raided by a team of over 100 I-T sleuths, the officials said.

“The actors and producers are aware of the impending search on their premises as search warrants were issued to them in advance for verifying documents and papers pertaining to their income, assets and properties,” said an I-T department spokesperson on the condition of anonymity. The persons raided were actors Shivaraj Kumar, his brother Puneeth Kumar, Sudeep Sanjeev and Yash and producers Rockline Venkatesh, CR Manohar and B Vijaykumar.

“I believe the searches are related to investments in the films, including their production cost, fee paid to the actors and amounts collected for selling their rights to distributors and exhibitors,” said Sudeep, one of the actors to be raided.

UTTAR PRADESH RAIDS

Meanwhile, Income tax officials carried out simultaneous raids on the premises of a prominent sweetmeat shop and a wellknown pan masala brand in Lucknow and Kanpur on Thursday.

Another team from Lucknow raided a slaughterhouse in Unnao and seized incriminating documents.