Excise Asks Over 600 Jewellers to Give Details of Gold Sales

New Delhi: In another move to check illegal sale of gold after demonetisation of high-value notes, excise officials have summoned details of sale of the yellow metal and ornaments from over 600 jewellers across 25 cities.

The officials of Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence (DGCEI), an intelligence arm under the Finance Ministry, has sent notices to these jewellers seeking details of the gold sales in the past four days, beginning November 7, official sources said today.

They have been asked to give details like quantity of stock held by them and sales made during these days.

Teams of DGCEI officials are also visiting major jewellery stores and their manufacturing units to serve notices seeking these details, the sources said.

Jewellers in major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Vijaywada, Nashik and Lucknow are initially under the scrutiny of the DGCEI officials, they said, adding that this exercise can later be extended to other cities too.

The move comes after Finance Ministry directed the jewellers to sell gold and ornaments made from it only against customers' PAN details.

"The person who buys jewellery has to give his PAN number. We are issuing instructions to the field authorities to check with all the jewellers to ensure that this requirement is not compromised. Action will be taken against those jewellers who fail to take PAN numbers from such buyers.

"When the cash deposits of the jewellers would be scrutinised against the sales made, whether they have taken the PAN number of the buyer or not will also be checked," Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia had said.

The Centre had on Tuesday demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in order to check blackmoney, corruption, money laundering, terror financing as well as counterfeiting of currency notes.

The Income Tax department had yesterday conducted multiple surveys in Delhi, Mumbai and other cities in the wake of reports of alleged profiteering and subsequent tax evasion by traders by converting withdrawn currency notes in an illegal manner.