Income tax raid at pharma firm hetero for possible tax evasion
Hyderabad: Income tax officials conducted searches at the premises of leading pharmaceutical company Hetero Drugs in Hyderabad on Wednesday.
Following this raid conducted on Hetero's offices, the Income Tax Department has discovered unaccounted transactions and also collected certain documents and seized many computer hard discs which would be investigated to examine whether there was any possible tax evasion.
As per PTI, searches are being conducted at the firm's headquarters, as well as some of its manufacturing facilities and offices in this city and Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.
The search operation has resulted in the detection of unaccounted transactions. Further, as per sources, a number of incriminating documents, loose papers, digital evidence have been found and seized. The evidence contains detailed records of the group's unaccounted transactions spread across multiple financial years, reports ANI.
The income tax searches come days after Hetero Group Chairman B. Parthasaradhi Reddy was ranked the second richest man in Hyderabad.
According to Hurun India Rich List 2021, Parthasaradhi Reddy and the family of Hetero Labs rank 58 on the list of the wealthiest Indians. His wealth grew by 88 per cent in a year to Rs.26,100 crore. Last year, he was ranked 81.
Hetero, which has 36 state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities worldwide, manufactures products for major therapeutic categories such as HIV/AIDS, oncology, cardiovascular, neurology, hepatitis, nephrology etc.
Hetero is a major global supplier of APIs (including cytotoxics) to pharmaceutical companies in India and abroad that make formulations and new-generation products. Hetero is based in the city and has manufacturing facilities in India, China, Russia, Egypt, Mexico, and Iran.
Hetero gained fame after signing multiple partnerships and continuing to produce COVID-19 treatment medications such as Remdesivir and Favipiravir.
Hetero was the first company in the country to introduce the generic version of Remdesivir injection, known as COVIFOR, which is used to treat hospitalised situations.
After receiving approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), the firm marketed their version of the antiviral medicine Favipiravir under the brand name Favivir, which is used to treat mild to moderate COVID-19 patients.
Last month, the Medical Dialogues Team had reported that in a significant development, drug firm Hetero had got the green signal from the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) functional under the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) to manufacture the Sputnik V vaccine for restricted use in emergency situations.
The Rs 7,500 crore pharma major is one of the firms that has tied up with Russian Direct Investment Fund to manufacture COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V in India.
Read also: Hetero gets CDSCO panel nod to manufacture Sputnik V for restricted emergency use
