Dhanbad, April 10: The investigation wing of the income-tax department here has stumbled upon one of the biggest irregularities in tax payment.

Three businessmen Parmeshwar Das Agarwal, Parmanand Agarwal and Radha Krishna Agwarwal — sons of late B.S. Agarwal — have been charged with not disclosing assets and properties over the years. They own factories, contract firms and offices in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Bengal.

The highly confidential raids at 13 locations in the five states started on April 4 and continued for three days. The raids were conducted under the supervision of Bihar-Jharkhand director (investigation) S.D. Jha from Patna and Vismita Tej, the additional director (investigation), Ranchi.

The officials came to know about a dozen of lockers owned by the family members in different banks — mostly in Calcutta — and over 24 bank accounts. The lockers would be opened in the presence of the family members who are now in Calcutta, said one of the I-T officials.

I-T sources said that the documents seized form various places are yet to arrive here and their scrutiny is likely to reveal more tax evasion. The department has come to know about accumulation of black money of over Rs 20 crore. The estimated disclosure is likely to touch the Rs 50-crore mark.

About 30 bank accounts, 11 lockers and land purchase documents of the family were seized during the raid led by Sanjay Kumar, the assistant director (investigation) Dhanbad.

From five locations in Calcutta, their prime centre, property and business-related-documents were found and eight lockers in different banks were seized.

One locker each in Jharsuguda, Bokaro and Dhanbad were also seized. Acquisition of huge chunks of land in not less than 70 locations — worth more than Rs 48 crore — across the country was also disclosed. Cash and jewellery alone would cost Rs 70 lakh, said one of the officials in the team.

The brothers owned two companies in the name of Singhal Enterprises and Singhal Enterprises Private Limited and two firms BS Sponge Private Limited and Messrs BS Agarwal Enterprises. The businesses are in civil contract and transport of sponge iron.

The brothers used to take contracts from BCCL, CCL, Mahanadi Coalfields Limited of Coal India Limited.