In a major crackdown, the Benami Prohibition Unit (BPU) of the Income Tax Department in Hyderabad has provisionally attached a massive land parcel valued at a staggering ₹2,002 crore. The attached properties span 282 acres located in Koheda and Omer Khan Daira villages within the Abdullapurmet mandal on Hyderabad's outskirts.
The Structure of the Alleged Fraud
Investigations by the BPU have prima facie found that the land transactions were benami. The unit identified Incor Realty Projects as the benamidar (the name in which the property was held), while the beneficial owners are alleged to be former Sanghi Industries Ltd (SIL) promoter Ravi Sanghi and his family.
The land originally belonged to the erstwhile listed company, Sanghi Industries Ltd. It was sold through a structured arrangement involving Incor Realty and Venkateshwara Realty, a partnership firm controlled by the Sanghi family. The BPU alleges this structure was deliberately designed to conceal the true ownership and bypass mandatory regulatory scrutiny under SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) norms.
Undervaluation and Bypassing Shareholder Approval
The probe revealed a calculated effort to avoid regulatory thresholds. SIL initially registered the sale of the 282-acre land to Incor Realty for approximately ₹84 crore. This value was deliberately kept below 10% of the company's turnover (₹92.8 crore) to avoid triggering requirements for audit committee approval and consent from non-promoter shareholders for related-party transactions.
The BPU found that Incor Realty acted merely as a conduit. The purchase was not funded from its own resources. After the Sanghi family received proceeds from selling their SIL shares following the company's acquisition, they allegedly channelled ₹245 crore as capital into Venkateshwara Realty. This entity then paid Incor, which, on the very same day—December 8, 2023—transferred the money to SIL.
After the promoters exited SIL's management, rectification deeds were executed, revising the declared land value from ₹84 crore to ₹218 crore. The investigation also uncovered allegedly morphed photographs and back-dated valuation reports prepared in 2024 but antedated to 2023 to justify this revised valuation.
A Classic Benami Transaction
The BPU concluded that the entire arrangement qualifies as a benami transaction under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988. While the legal title stood in Incor's name, the purchase consideration originated from the Sanghi family-controlled Venkateshwara Realty.
Evidence including WhatsApp chats and bank records allegedly shows that Incor paid SIL only after receiving funds from the Sanghi entity. The unit stated this fulfills all elements of a benami deal. The attachment orders explicitly state the case involves a "pre-meditated conspiracy by the erstwhile promoters of SIL to siphon off valuable corporate land assets into a private firm controlled by them, just prior to the company being acquired by another company."
The investigation also noted that SIL had disclosed to SEBI that the surplus land was being sold to a non-related party, while it ultimately ended up with a related entity. Furthermore, Veptor Projects Pvt Ltd (VPPL), a sister concern of Incor Realty, was later 'rewarded' with a joint development agreement to develop the attached lands.
