Indore: The Income-Tax Depar-tment has busted the nexus between more than 50 leading doctors of the city and Shakuntala Devi Hospital. They used to “transact” in huge amounts of cash but revealed a much lower amount on the bills. Thus in the last few years, they evaded huge amount of taxes.
Under the directions of Joint Commissioner of Income-Tax, VJ Boricha, a team of I-T officials led by Deputy Commissioner Sagar Srivastava and I-T officer Brinda Rajesh along with police personnel carried out survey proceedings U/S 133A of the I-T Tax Act, 1961 at the premises of Shakuntala Devi Hospital and Research Center (SDHRC) at Bengali Chouraha. The proceedings, which commenced around noon on Wednesday, was carried out all night long and concluded early on Thursday.
The hospital is headed by Dr Anil Vijayvargiya, who also happens to be the President of Indore Medical Association’s city chapter.
During the course of survey proceedings, startling details were unearthed. Visiting or consulting doctors who referred patients to the hospital used to give strict directions to the hospital management to include only a small portion of their actual fees in the bill(s) provided to the patient.
They also directed the hospital to collect the patient fees separately in cash and hand it over to them in sealed envelopes. Under duress, even the patients complied with the dictum and could hardly say anything.
Records destroyed after paying fee in cash
A list of names of 52 leading doctors of the city, who indulged in this practice in collusion with the hospital, was prepared by the IT officials. Corroborative evidences such as registers containing cash paid to doctors, cash amount mentioned separately in kaccha receipts along with the name of the doctor tagged to the proper bill and even envelopes containing the cash along with the name of the doctor were found during the survey. The hospital management also confided to this malpractice and accepted having instructed its staff to destroy all such records
Officer accessing tax evasion of doctors
Department officials will share the names of the doctors with their respective assessing officers for detailed enquiry and quantification of undisclosed income amassed over years, which may lead to their cases being reopened for the past 6 years under the IT Act.
Hospital shows bogus salary expense
Other ways in which the hospital suppressed its true income, such as debiting bogus salary expense to non-existent employees, suppression of pathology receipts, unaccounted payments made in cash for purchase of property, etc. also came to light during the course of survey proceedings.
