The Income Tax department conducted searches at various educational institutions and other offices related to the Sri Chaitanya Educational Institutions group on March 10. The searches were conducted in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, where the company has a major presence, as well as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai.
Searches were also carried out at the company’s headquarters in Hyderabad’s Madhapur, and continued on March 11 for a second day, according to reports.
So far, I-T officials have seized nearly Rs 5 crore in cash, The Times of India reported. According to reports, officials were examining the software systems used to record fee transactions, as they suspect that the colleges were using dual software to hide certain transactions from authorities, to evade taxes.
The I-T department is also probing allegations that the colleges were collecting fees in the form of cash to evade taxes, Deccan Chronicle reported.
The Sri Chaitanya group of schools and colleges is a prominent chain of educational institutions in the Telugu states. They run 321 junior colleges and 322 schools in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, as well as 107 schools in other states of India. Sri Chaitanya was founded by Dr BS Rao, formerly a medical professional, who passed away in 2023. It is now managed by his daughters, Sushma and Seema Boppana.
The schools and colleges offer coaching for competitive entrance exams such as Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), and charge lakhs of rupees in fees.