Mumbai: Tax officials have begun assessing properties belonging to the Mumbai- based Raheja group of industries to look into unaccounted income of its companies.

While refusing to divulge details of the raids, the tax officials said they were examining records and verifying information provided by the group companies belonging to builder Rajan Raheja.

The tax raids on Raheja's companies, including hotels, construction companies, Shoppers' Stop chain of retail stores, news weekly ‘Outlook’, cable company Hathway Communications and other business, began on Tuesday covering 12 cities, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Surat and Madurai.

In Mumbai, more than 700 tax officials swooped down on 128 offices and residents of the builders, tax officials said, adding documents pertaining to several commercial transactions belonging to the company have been seized by the Income Tax department for scrutiny.

Though details of the operations were not available, officials say they are acting on specific information about tax evasion by the Rahejas. The operation began as a survey on Tuesday morning, but was transformed into a raid to detect undisclosed income, they added.

Meanwhile, officials at the New Delhi branch of Shoppers' Stop, a specialty chain of garment and accessory retail stores, said that the officials conducted "normal enquiry" in the store.

"It was a normal inquiry. They just wanted to check book stock and physical material available in the store. We fully cooperated with them and we are doing our business normally now," Prasant Kapoor, in-charge of Shoppers' Stop's New Delhi branch, told IANS.

Shoppers' Stop opened its first outlet in 1991 in Mumbai with a retail area of 4,500 square feet, which has since grown to around 195,000 square feet. It also owns Crossroads, a specialty chain of books, music and gifts.

The retail major's first outlet in New Delhi opened in December last year, taking the total number of stores in India to seven.

India Abroad News Service