Bhopal, May 02: The Income Tax department is conducting a survey and search in 22 premises of National Board of Trade (NBOT), the country's third-biggest commodity exchange, and its brokers here on Friday. AK Singh, Director of Investigations, Income Tax department told, “The survey is on at NBOT and search at premises of its brokers and distributors.”
Sources said that Income tax sleuths, who reached Indore in the morning and executed the operation with the assistance of local police, conducted searches at the offices and residence of eight traders and brokers, including its Chairman Kailash Sahara. The searches were also conducted at the establishments of NBOT Director Rajendra Neema and brokers Raju Miglani, Suresh Bhai, Ram Bhai, Sushil Akola, Girdharilal Sarda and Atul Mundra, they said adding most of these businessmen dealt in soybean in the commodity exchange market. Business at the NBOT was affected as the I-T sleuths conducted the survey, sources said. NBOT follows the Multi Commodity Exchange of India or MCX and National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange of India or NCDEX in terms of turnover.
Madhya Pradesh is the country's hub for soybean and soyoil trade and NBOT's focus is on edible oil futures trade. The state accounts for 60 percent of India's soybean output. The search and survey operations by the income tax department continued till late night, sources said adding evidences indicating large-scale tax evasion is expected to be uncovered during the operation. Some brokers falling in the IT dragnet had recently started new soy plants in Shajapur, Ratlam and Banarkhedi, sources said. A haul of incriminating documents relating to huge investments by a broker on lands in Bicholi Habsi and Bicholi Mardana have been recovered during the operation.