The Income Tax Department in Gujarat conducted a search and seizure operation at Chiripal Group of Ahmedabad. The operation was initiated by the investigation wing of Surat and found unaccounted transactions of over Rs 800 crores. The raid began on July 19 in 49 locations of the conglomerate. Over 25 crores cash and 15 crores worth of jewellery have been seized.
Over 200 I-T officials were deployed in this nine-days long income tax raid at various locations of Chiripal Group. Tax evasion and underbilling of transactions were identified. Digital documents of the group are still under investigation by FSL. In this investigation, unaccounted income was also found in the real estate investments of the group. Over 20 lockers were seized. The conglomerate also owns benami property.
Company’s main office, Chiripal House in Shivranjani and in the Bopal area were under investigation. Jyotiprasad Chiripal, Vedprakash Chiripal, Brijmohan Chiripal, Vishal Chiripal and Ronak Chiripal were under the I-T radar. The searches were also conducted at Nandan Denim and Vishal Fabrics.
Former Gujarat cadre IPS officer of 1976 batch, DGP Chittranjan Singh–was on the panel of Chiripal Group’s Vishal Fabrics as an independent director. He passed away in February, 2021.
Turnover of Over $ 700 million
Chiripal Group was incorporated in 1972. They are into petrochemicals, spinning, weaving, knitting, fabric processing, chemicals, infrastructure, and educational initiatives. They have over 20,000 employees. In 2021, the company had revenue of more than Rs 10,000 crore. Chiripal Group has a current annual turnover of $700 million USD from various businesses.
Chiripal and its history of fire incidents
Chiripal group is infamous for fire incidents in its manufacturing units. In February, 2020 six workers were burnt to death in a fiery fire at the Nandan Denim factory of the Chiripal Group in Narol area, Ahmedabad. Despite frequent occurrences of fire incidents in the company, no action is taken.
The deadly negligence was investigated and police had arrested Jyoti Chiripal, Deepak Chiripal, BC Patel, HM Patel, Ravikant Sinha, PK Sharma, DC.
