<span style="color: #222222;">Income Tax Department today carried out search and survey operations at around 20 residential and business premises of a prominent group having operations in Jharkhand and West Bengal. The group is engaged in trading of various commodities, production of Vanaspati ghee, real estate and tea estates.<br />'' <br />'' Central Board of Direct Taxes-CBDT in a statement said that during the search substantial evidence of transactions outside the regular books of accounts, unaccounted cash expenses and cash advances received and interest having been paid in cash, have been found. Further, cash has been found to have been introduced in the group shell companies, which has been advanced as loan to the real estate company. It said, most of the companies having family members as directors, do not have any real business and very few returns of income have been filed. CBDT said that one such group company has no business since 2014, although it has shown sales of seven crore rupees in cash.<br />'' <br />'' As per preliminary estimates, evidence of cash transactions of around 40 crore rupees have been found and advances received for the real estate project of around 80 crore rupees are also under examination.</span><br />