UP based businessman Piyush Jain arrested for tax evasion

Piyush Jain, a Kanpur-based businessman has been arrested in the case of evasion of Goods and Services Tax. He has been booked under Section 69 of the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Act.

He came to light recently after a raid was conducted at his home where the police found heaps of cash and note counting machines. The videos and pictures from the incident immediately went viral. 

Approximately, Rs 180 crore were seized from his home by the police. The Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) Ahmedabad also recovered Rs 10 crore cash from his Ahmedabad factory and residence. 

#WATCH | As per Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs chairman Vivek Johri, about Rs 150 crores have been seized in the raid, counting still underway.

Visuals from businessman Piyush Jain's residence in Kanpur. pic.twitter.com/u7aBTJhGxW — ANI (@ANI) December 24, 2021

The police also gathered unaccounted sandalwood oil, perfumes worth crores from Piyush Jain's factory in Ahmedabad. Not only this but raids were carried out at his other offices and godowns that was owned and operated by a transporter called M/s Ganpati Road Carriers in Kanpur. 

Piyush Jain was finally taken into custody by the GST Intelligence unit in Kanpur on Sunday, December 26. Reportedly, the police in Kanpur recovered cash worth over Rs 150 crore in addition to gold and silver amounting to an overall recovery of nearly Rs 257 crore.

Meanwhile, addressing the people of Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Aditynath alleged that Piyush Jain has connections with the Samajwadi Party. He said, "For the past two-three days, continuous raids are being conducted on the premises of a person belonging to the SP. Rupees 257 crore in cash and several kilograms of gold and silver was recovered."

However, SP has denied any links with Piyush Jain as of now. Samajwadi Party's digital media coordinator, Manish Jagan Agarwal tweeted on Friday, "The raids at the house of Shikhar Pan Masala Group and perfume trader Piyush Jain in Kanpur and the cash recovered is a story of failure of demonetisation. The BJP and the media are defaming SP by forcibly linking Piyush Jain and Shikhar Pan Masala to SP. Piyush Jain has nothing to do with SP MLC Pumpi Jain."

He further said, "Since a few days ago, income tax raids were conducted on people linked to the SP. But, the government and the agencies did not get anything. The people of SP came out clean. Hence, a frustrated BJP immediately conducted a raid, and recovered cash, and also hatched a conspiracy to link their propaganda with the SP, and mislead the people."