Powai businessman arrested for holding Rs 1.7 crore in old notes, may have to pay 5-time penalty
Demonetized notes worth Rs 1.7 crore were seized from the office of Ajay Gupta in Powai
A city-based businessman has been arrested from Powai and demonetised currency notes worth Rs 1.70 crore were seized from him in a joint operation between Juhu unit of Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Mumbai Police.
According to police, the scrapped currency notes in denominations of both Rs 500 and Rs 1000 were recovered on the basis of a specific tip-off.
In total, old notes worth Rs 1.7 crore were recovered from the office of businessman Ajay Rajendraprasad Gupta (36) around 3 pm on April 2.
Gupta is the owner of Universal Infotech Ventures Pvt Ltd and his office is located at Saki Vihar Road in Powai.
Following the seizure, Gupta was booked under Specified Banknotes (Cessation and Liability) Act, 2017. If convicted, he will have to cough up a penalty of five times the total amount that was recovered from him.
“Police have arrested Gupta in this case and produced before the court, where he was released on bail later,” Vinayak Deshmukh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-X) said.
Information about the money seizure was shared with Income Tax department too, he said.
During the inquiry, Gupta told police that he had gone to deposit the amount in RBI on March 31st. However, his turn did not come till evening. After getting the information about the extension of date, he had returned to office with the scrapped currency notes.
“Our investigation in this case is on and we are verifying Guptas claim,” said DCP Deshmukh.
Ahead of the March 31 deadline, Rs 4.6 crore cash in demonetized notes was seized within Mumbai in one day.
