Cuttack/Kendrapara, Nov. 18: Ten days after the government scrapped the country's two highest currency notes, cash worth Rs 25 lakh, all in Rs 1,000 currency notes, was seized from a car near Tinimuhani traffic junction in Kendrapara town this evening.
Acting on a tip off, police intercepted a car that was carrying the cash bag. A businessman from Cuttack who deals in jewellery was the one with the cash and he has been detained. The car has been impounded and the cash is now in police custody.
"We have detained Prakash Nath Saha, a jeweller from High Court Chowk in Cuttack. He is being questioned. He is yet to elaborate on the source of the money. We are examining whether the money was black money or not. We are looking at his income tax returns," said inspector of Kendrapara police station Sanjeev Mohanty.
"Saha is yet to give satisfactory answers on the ownership of the notes. The possibility of the demonetised notes brought here for exchanging it through a network of middlemen may not be ruled out. That's why we are looking into all possible angles," he told The Telegraph.
The income tax department has been informed of the cash seizure.
"If he can justify the source of the cash as legitimate, it will be duly returned. Else, legal action will be initiated according to the provisions of law," said Mohanty.
This is the second seizure of high-denomination currency in Odisha since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's November 8 announcement of scrapping Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes that took the nation by surprise. On November 16, Balangir police had seized scrapped currency notes worth Rs 10 lakh from two youths at Kantabanji, sources said.
A lot of black money is being routed into the jewellery and real estate business in Kendrapara and Paradip.
"Traders dealing in gold and real estate need to be brought under the scanner of the income tax department and the police so that the surgical strike on hoarders of black money pays dividends," said a retired state-run SAIL official, Sarat Chandra Mahapatra.
There was heavy rush of customers to jewellery shops following Modi's November 8 announcement.
"Purchases worth crores of rupees were made with the high-value notes," said senior citizen Sadananda Mohanty.
