Patna, Dec. 6: The income tax (I-T) department has confiscated Rs 2.3 crore from Saharsa-based doctor Shankar Kumar Issar after he failed to show the source of the money.

Sources in the I-T department's regional office in Patna said Issar, who owns a private clinic in Saharsa town, had deposited the cash in his bank account within 15 days of the Prime Minister announcing demonetisation. I-T officials from the Bhagalpur office questioned the doctor in Saharsa, around 240km northeast of Patna. The doctor, however, failed to provide the source of the money to officials.

"So I-T officials decided to confiscate the sum," a senior I-T official said today.

The official said the doctor was interrogated for two consecutive days. The doctor told the interrogators that his wife, son and daughter-in-law were also in the medical profession.

Efforts to contact the doctor proved futile. His cellphone was switched off and there was no response despite repeated calls to the landline in his clinic.

Earlier, I-T officials had interrogated a woman from Bhojpur after she deposited Rs 40 lakh in her Jan Dhan account within a week after demonetisation.

Sitara Devi, a resident of Nehru Nagar in Ara district headquarters town, however, claimed the money belonged to her family, who were in the dairy business. "Investigation is under way to ascertain the veracity of her claim," the I-T official told The Telegraph.

Sitara told the interrogators she had earned the money from the family's traditional business. "We have a family of 60 persons. I deposited the money in one bank account owing to lack of information," an I-T official quoted the woman as saying.

The official expressed surprise over sudden deposition of Rs 40 lakh into the Jan Dhan account, that had zero balance and had not seen any transaction in 18 months. "The account saw a huge deposit in just a week against the maximum deposit limit of Rs 49,000," the official said.