Income tax officials have seized INR 100 crore deposited in 13 different accounts of Ana branch of Bank of India at Jharia after searches at the residences of contractor and coal dealer Lal Babu Singh, alias Lal Bahadur Singh, concluded at the Shimla Bahal area on Thursday morning.

The income tax department on Wednesday had recovered INR 70 crore cash from the residence of the coal businessman. A team of 30 officials led by income tax additional director Mr Sanjay Kumar Srivastva had raided the coal dealer's residence on Wednesday afternoon. The I-T officials here claimed that it was the biggest ever seizure in a single raid in the country. Mr Srivastava who was present at the palatial house of Singh told reporters that "The result was beyond our expectations. We were getting reports about the money being deposited in the bank without PAN numbers. It is much more than we expected."

The I-T officials raided the residence of Singh's driver and also his chartered accountant, D N Sinha, at Housing Colony here. Mr Singh used to deposit money in the name of Bharat Singh and Rambir Singh too.

They are also investigating into charges that Singh was depositing the money on behalf of some senior officials of Bharat Coking Coal Limited and also some leading politicians of the coal belt. Singh hails from a village in Balia district of Uttar Pradesh, which was also the home of once upon a time coal mafia Suryadeo Singh.

Singh's brother, Shatrughan Singh, said his brother was innocent and the rivals have instigated the I-T to raid his office. "Everything is fair in the business," said Shatughan. I-T officials got information that Singh had given INR 500,000 to a BCCL general manager for offering bribe to a CBI inspector of Dhanbad, who had conducted raids in Kustore mines area to probe charges of overreporting of coal stock.

(Sourced from TOI)