Nagpur : In a major financial crackdown, the Income Tax Department’s Intelligence and Criminal Investigation (I&CI) wing has uncovered suspicious transactions worth over ₹1,500 crore routed through 22,550 bank accounts in Nagpur. The probe has revealed the involvement of three cooperative banks — two based in Nagpur and one from outside the city.
The investigation exposed more than 400 cases of deposits and withdrawals exceeding ₹50 lakh and around 150 cases involving fixed deposits above ₹10 lakh. Shockingly, over 20,000 accounts received annual interest payments above ₹2 lakh, but no details of these payments were reported to the tax authorities.
The Modus Operandi
During the scrutiny of cooperative banks’ financial records, the department discovered nearly ₹200 crore worth of transactions that were not reported in the Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) — a mandatory report through which banks must inform the I-T Department about high-value transactions.
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28 Oct 2025
What the Law Requires
Under SFT regulations:
- SFT-3 mandates reporting deposits or withdrawals exceeding ₹50 lakh from current accounts.
- SFT-4 requires reporting if total savings account transactions exceed ₹10 lakh annually.
- SFT-5 covers fixed deposits above ₹10 lakh.
- SFT-16 mandates reporting of interest payments exceeding ₹2 lakh per annum.
Officials suspect that certain cooperative banks deliberately ignored these mandatory norms, allowing large sums to circulate unchecked.
Depositors Under the Scanner
The department is now preparing to issue notices to individuals whose accounts were involved in these suspicious deposits and transactions. While cooperative banks are legally obligated to file SFT reports, cooperative societies are exempt — a loophole that some appear to have exploited to conceal funds.
Unreported Interest Raises Alarm
Investigators found multiple cases where crores worth of interest payments were made but not declared — neither by the banks nor by the beneficiaries in their income tax returns, deepening suspicions of tax evasion.
Wider Crackdown Likely Across Vidarbha
Sources within the department indicated that similar investigations are likely to be expanded to other cooperative banks in the Vidarbha region. The pattern appears similar to earlier probes into property registration offices, suggesting that large-scale black money circulation through cooperative banks may be far more widespread than previously believed.
This revelation has sent ripples through the financial and business community in Nagpur, as authorities gear up for what could be one of the biggest coordinated clean-ups of cooperative banking operations in recent years.
