Chennai, Dec 7 (IANS): The Income Tax department on Tuesday said that a leading retail chain group that has branches across Tamil Nadu has suppressed sales worth Rs 1,000 crore over the past few years.

The IT Department had conducted searches across the group in 37 locations at Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, and Tirunelveli on December 1.

In a statement, it said that the popular group in Tamil Nadu that deals with jewellery, textiles, and home appliances was searched, and an amount of Rs 10 crore in cash was seized. The raids also led to the seizure of jewellery, and bullion worth Rs 6 crores that were unaccounted for.

The assessee has been systematically suppressing sale details by manipulating their book of accounts over the past several years, it said, and according to department sources, the suppression of sales was more than Rs 1000 crores.

The IT Department also said that the group had made unaccounted purchases worth Rs 150 crore in textile and jewellery during the past few years.

Incriminating materials were seized during the raids and the assessee group was found to have obtained bogus bills worth several crores of rupees and had suppressed taxable income. This action of the group, according to the IT Department, has brought huge losses to the government's coffers.

Unaccounted scrap sales worth Rs 7 crore were also detected during the raids, the department said in the statement. The raids also revealed that there were unaccounted purchases of gold and the group, according to the IT department had made inflated rates for the manufacture of jewellery.