Nagpur: In a major crackdown on high-value tax evasion, the Income Tax Department’s Intelligence and Criminal Investigation (I&CI) Wing has unearthed a staggering ₹800 crore worth of unreported property transactions during a two-day survey at the Hingna Sub-Registrar Office (SRO). The investigation, carried out on July 22 and 23, revealed a new modus operandi involving selective data suppression from Maharashtra’s official property registration portal iSarita.
Key Discovery: Selective Reporting from iSarita Portal
Under Indian tax laws, all property transactions exceeding ₹30 lakh must be reported to the IT Department annually through Form 61A (Part D) by May 31. The iSarita system is built to automatically identify and extract such transactions, enabling seamless compliance with the Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) framework.
However, in this case, Hingna SRO officials allegedly manually filtered the data—choosing which transactions to report—rather than submitting the full list automatically generated by the portal. As a result, over 600 high-value property transactions worth more than ₹800 crore went unreported over the past five years.
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05 Aug 2025
Loophole Exploited: Avoiding PAN-Linked Surveillance
By bypassing automated reporting, these transactions remained outside the Income Tax Department’s real-time surveillance system, which uses PAN-linked data to detect high-value activities. This allowed both property buyers and sellers to escape scrutiny, thus avoiding taxes and regulatory checks.
The scam only came to light when I&CI officials conducted a physical audit, comparing raw data from iSarita with actual submissions on the SFT portal. The cross-check revealed deliberate suppression of information and multiple cases of properties being registered only at the Ready Reckoner (RR) rates, raising concerns of undervaluation and under-the-table payments.
Not Technical Error — A Deliberate Strategy
Department sources confirmed that the manipulation was not due to any technical glitch but a planned strategy, potentially involving collusion between officials and third-party data entry operators. Investigations are now underway to identify the parties involved, including buyers, sellers, and intermediaries.
The Principal Director General of Income Tax (I&CI), New Delhi, has taken serious note of the findings. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has ordered a wider probe across all 21 sub-registrar offices in Nagpur district and the entire Vidarbha region to check for similar fraudulent practices.
Nationwide Impact Expected
This case has highlighted a glaring loophole in the current compliance system, exposing how automation can be undermined through manual intervention. Officials say this “Hingna model” of tax evasion may now become a reference point for nationwide scrutiny, as similar underreporting could be occurring in other regions as well.
