By Express News Service

BENGALURU: A search operation conducted by the Investigation Directorate of Income Tax Department on the offices of two senior engineers and their associates, resulted in the recovery of approximately Rs 5 crore in cash and gold ornaments worth Rs 2 crore.

Of the cash, Rs 4.7 crore were in new notes of Rs 2,000 denomination. According to sources , the officials whose residences were raided are S C Jayachandra, Chief Planning Officer of State Highway Development Project, PWD department and T N Chikkarayappa, Managing Director of Cauvery Neeravari Nigam Ltd.

According to press releases from the Ministry of Finance and Income Tax Department, residences of two State government engineers and two contractors were raided on Wednesday. Those raids continued to Thursday. The raids were being conducted on 10 premises associated with officials and contractors in Bengaluru, Chennai and Erode.

New notes

The presence of large amounts of cash in new denominations has raised several questions, sources said. It might indicate that there was a nexus between the officials and banks, from where they could have exchanged large batches of old notes for new denominations. The ministry press release said that Rs 30 lakh was found in old denominations, bringing the total cash seized to Rs five crore.

Seven kg of gold ornaments, worth approximately Rs 2 crore had also been seized. The gold and cash were found in a flat owned by a civil contractor. According to the Ministry of Finance, “The new notes and bullion are learnt to have been obtained by exchange of demonetised notes by payment of commission.”

High end cars

Apart from the large amounts of cash currency, the Income Tax Department said that several property documents were also found during the raids. Reports said that S C Jayachandra possessed high-end cars too, which he had allegedly bought in the name of his son, Thrijesh.