Colleges hand over illegal donations to I-T

I-T director-general (investigation) Shiv Kumar Sharma said a Kolhapur-based middleman, in whose name crores of rupees had been invested by an institution, had done the vanishing act. Besides, hunt is on for another middleman from another state. Sharma said the operations had led them to at least six lockers belonging to middlemen.

‘‘Some of them were bank lockers, while others had private lockers,’’ he said. However, the I-T Department is yet to open these lockers.

He said the I-T department had seized documents pertaining to investments worth crores of rupees and Rs 5 lakh in cash from a middleman. Also recovered were a dozen middlemen’s diaries, containing names of people with details of amounts paid by them.

‘‘The department will look into the finances of these people and will not spare them even if they are top government officials, if it was found that they paid black money for admissions,’’ he said. Several benami bank accounts, and a few other undeclared bank accounts have also been unearthed.

Sharma said the investigation wing of the department would now begin assessing the on-field seizures from Monday.

‘‘The financial liabilities of the people who have been raided will be ascertained in a month,’’ he said.

Describing the modus operandi, Sharma said some of the institutions had set up smaller trusts and companies to divert the money, while others diverted it towards property development and infrastructure.