Mumbai: Senior IPS Officer's Husband Arrested In ₹263 Crore TDS Refund Fraud

In the high-profile Rs 263 crore Income Tax TDS refund fraud case, the Enforcement Directorate(ED) has apprehended Purshottam Chauhan, a prominent businessman and the husband of a senior IPS officer of the Maharashtra cadre. According to ED sources during the search operation at the premises of the senior IPS officer, incriminating documents regarding multiple properties , foreign currency, and mobile phones were recovered and seized.

A Maharashtra cadre IPS officer, presently stationed in Mumbai and currently undergoing treatment for a severe illness. Sources reveal that her husband Purshottam was involved in share market trading and allegedly participated in hawala transactions with businessman Rajesh Brijlal Batreja, who was also arrested in connection with the Income Tax TDS refund fraud case.

Purshottam Chavan was arrested on May 20, a day after the agency raided his premises in Mumbai. Chavan has been sent to ED custody till May 27.

The arrested person, Purshottam Chavan, is accused of possession, concealment, and diversion of the proceeds of crime. He was arrested by the agency after his name came up following the arrest of Rajesh Batreja, who was nabbed by the ED last week.

During the investigation, the ED found evidence that suggesting that Batreja and Chavan maintained regular communication, exchanging incriminating messages related to hawala transactions and the diversion of proceeds of crime (POC). Purshottam  attempted to hamper the investigation by destroying evidence, which could have further led to tracing the POC.

Apart from Batreja and Chavan, the agency previously arrested three persons in the case — former I-T official Tanaji Adhikari and businessmen Bhushan Patil and Rajesh Shetty.

Batreja, currently in ED’s custody, has been identified as a close associate of the main accused, former I-T official Tanaji Adhikari. They allegedly diverted Rs 55.4 crore of crime proceeds abroad. The ED investigation revealed that Batreja and Chavan were involved in money laundering and fund diversion. Batreja assisted Adhikari in concealing the proceeds and later facilitated the placement and layering of the funds by establishing firms in Dubai to make the money appear legitimate. Additionally, Batreja invested some of the funds in two Indian companies based in Mumbai and Gurugram under the guise of share investments through cross-border remittance.

Case Background

I-T officer Tanaji Adhikari, the key accused handling the refund of tax deducted at source (TDS) claims, was found to be the main culprit in the ₹264 crore TDS fraud. He used the login IDs and passwords of his senior officers in the I-T department to clear bogus refund claims into the account of another arrested accused. From November 2019 to November 2020, Adhikari cleared 12 fraudulent TDS refunds amounting to ₹264 crore. The ED alleged that the entire proceeds of crime were routed to another accused's firm’s bank account and then diverted to other accounts.Out of this ₹264 crore, Rajesh Batraja transferred ₹55.5 crore to Dubai and then showed it as investments in two companies established in India.