Rs 48 lakh in new notes, 7kg gold seized in I-T raids on Tamil Nadu chief secretary

Hours after the raids started, the CBI arrested sand mining baron J Shekhar Reddy from whose premises I-T officials had seized cash and gold worth more than Rs 180 crore last week.

The I-T raids extended to the premises of Rao's son P Vivek, relatives and associates, spread across 14 locations in Chennai, Bengaluru and Chittoor. Officials said they seized Rs 48 lakh in new currency notes and 7kg of gold worth Rs 2 crore. Rao is the first chief secretary of the state to face such action while in office. The I-T officials also searched his office at the state secretariat for more than five hours, starting at 2.25 pm. They took away 40 documents from Rao's office. Rao, ironically, is also the state vigilance commissioner. Armed Central Reserve Police personnel provided security at Rao's house and the secretariat during the raids, in another embarrassment to the state government and its police force. Rao was in his house in Anna Nagar in west Chennai when the I-T officials knocked on his door at 5.30am, sources said.

As news of the raid broke, Tamil Nadu chief minister O Panneerselvam convened a meeting of top bureaucrats, including adviser to the government Sheela Balakrishnan and secretaries to the CM, to review the situation. The state government neither put out any official communication on the raids nor did it decide on any action against Rao.

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