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Madhya Pradesh Home Secretary quits

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Home Secretary Rajesh Rajora submitted his resignation from the Indian Administrative Service on Friday after a raid by Income Tax sleuths at his residence here.

State Chief Secretary Rakesh Sahni confirmed that Mr. Rajora had submitted his resignation on moral grounds.

Mr. Sahni said “there is a procedure and it is now for the Union Government to decide whether or not to accept the resignation”.

The raid at the Home Secretary’s residence was part of a major search and seizure operation by the Income Tax Department at the residential and other premises of several prominent citizens of Bhopal on Friday morning.

The department had maintained absolute secrecy about the operation. According to official sources, minute details were worked out in advance and several teams of I-T sleuths supported by police personnel zeroed in simultaneously on the premises of a number of important persons including the Home Secretary.

Others who came under the I-T net were the State Director for Public Health, Ashok Sharma, retired IAS officer U. S. Samal, builder and media chain owner Arun Sehlot and his media partner Hridesh Dixit, Abhay Vishnoi and Shagun Vishnoi.

Efforts to contact them failed as no one was available for comment.

According to official sources, the search operation covered the Home Secretary along with Dr. Ashok Sharma and others purportedly linked with purchase of medicines for the State Government, while some others have been targeted to verify their income from different sources.

According to Income Tax Department sources, preliminary findings revealed that a certain individual whose residence and other properties were searched on Friday had concealed his taxable income by declaring it as agricultural income.

This amount runs into crores, it is alleged.

When contacted in the evening, a senior Income Tax officer said it would be premature to say anything more at this stage as the search operations were likely to continue till the wee hours of Saturday morning.

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Madhya Pradesh Home Secretary quits

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