The Income Tax Department is tightening its scrutiny on individuals suspected to have black money. After the crackdown on jewellery store owners, the taxman now has his eyes on parents of medical students studying at the Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences, who allegedly paid huge sums of money for their admission, the Bangalore Mirror reported.
The I-T officials had raided the college in September and seized Rs 43 crore cash collected as donation from students. An MBBS seat is rumored to cost between Rs 60-70 lakh, and may be even go up to Rs 1 crore, the Mirror reported.
Despite the exorbitant rates, most parents who paid the donation had declared their annual incomes to be within Rs 5-10 lakh, which fueled the I-T sleuths’ suspicion that the parents had something to hide or that they were hoarding black money, the report said.
A detailed questionnaire has been framed for parents of over 50 students. I-T sleuths told the Mirror that they spotted the discrepancy after looking into the admission forms where the parents’ incomes were mentioned.
The institute’s founder was the late liquor baron DK Audikesavulu. It offers 250 seats for the MBBS course and has a 15% management quota. It also has 93 seats for the PG course.
In July, the I-T department cracked down on three colleges in Puducherry and Chennai.
The targeted colleges were the Mahatma Gandhi Engineering college, Rajiv Gandhi Engineering College, Kasturbai Nursing college in Puducherry and Sathya Sai Medical College in Chennai.
A total of 120 income tax officials raided the home of a PRO of the Pondicherry-based colleges and recovered Rs 40 crore packed in 38 cardboard boxes. Another Rs 40 crore was retrieved from the premises of Sathya Sai Medical college, TNM had earlier reported.