IT sleuths conduct searches in pharma, real estate companies across Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: The Income Tax sleuths began searches at Vasudha Pharma Chem Ltd across 40 places in Hyderabad from Tuesday morning. The searches were conducted at the residence of Vasudha Pharma Chairman Raju and other directors of the company as the latter is learned to be involved in running 15 real estate businesses besides running Vasudha Pharma company.

A series of Income Tax raids were conducted on real estate firms and film financiers in 50 areas in Hyderabad and across the two Telugu states in the recent past.

The IT sleuths, who divided into 35 teams, conducted the raids on Aditya Constructions Private Ltd and Oorjitha Projects Private Ltd companies in Hyderabad.

The searches were conducted at residences and offices of builder Madhav Reddy at Lodha Apartment, Jubilee Hills, Gachibowli, Kondapur, Panjagutta in Kukatpally. It is alleged that Madhav Reddy was the benami of a prominent builder. Also, the searches were carried out at the residences of Srinivas Reddy and Veera Prakash, directors of Oorjitha Project Private Ltd.

On the other hand, simultaneous raids were conducted in two Telugu states by CRPF forces at the residence and office of a prominent political leader as well who recently joined a political party.

According to reports, besides Hyderabad, simultaneous raids were also going on in Guntur, Narsapuram, Visakhapatnam and Rajahmundry of Andhra Pradesh since Tuesday morning. The corporate offices and residences of the company’s chairman and directors were being extensively searched as part of the crackdown.

In Hyderabad, two teams of I-T sleuths were sifting through files and documents in Vengalarao Nagar while four teams were carrying out the searches at Vasudha Pharma’s corporate office in Madhapur. Chairman Venkata Rama Raju is being probed in connection with the reports that he had divested the profits earned from his pharma company into the real estate business.

The I-T department reportedly stumbled on some crucial evidence of these divested investments during some of their earlier raids on several real estate firms in the past.

Venkata Rama Raju’s rags-to-riches story

While MV Rama Raju is the chairman of Vasudha Pharma Chem Limited, MAS Raju, M Anand, MVN Madhusudan Raju, MVSNV Prasad Raju, M Varalakshmi, K Venkata Raju, G Venkata Ramana Raju, Dr PV Appaji and Kothapalli Srihari Varma are the members of the companies board.

Chairman Venkata Rama Raju began his career on a modest note in 1995 which triggered his meteoric rise since then. He was reportedly living out of a rented house in Vengalarao Nagar before striking it rich with his pharma and later real estate businesses. In this process, his company’s turnover rose from strength to strength, first hitting the Rs 500-crore mark then soaring quickly to Rs 1,000 crores in quick time.

The Income Tax officials are learnt to have been focusing on every minute detail pertaining to Rama Raju’s business transactions.

IT officials also carried out raids in Rajpushpa Lifestyle City, a construction company in Hyderabad. IT officials, who reached the place in five cars, searched the establishments of BRS MLC Venkatrami Reddy. Searches were conducted in 51 places including Vertex projects, Rajpusha projects and Muppa projects.