Income Tax raids at Mumbai's Lilavati Hospital

Mumbai:  Mumbai's famous Lilavati Hospital - the choice of several VIPs - got attention today for a different reason. The Income Tax raided 29 locations across the city on Monday that are related to the hospital and its trustees.

The hospital in Bandra is governed by the Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust, which was formed in 1978. Seven of the 11 trustees are from the Mehta family.

The searches come as two of the trustees - Prabodh Mehta and Rashmi Mehta - have been accused in the Supreme Court of siphoning money from the hospital to a bank account in Liechtenstein.

The petition has been filed by a Delhi resident, Harsh Raghuvanshi, who claims that the Mehtas are using the hospital for money-laundering. The Supreme Court had asked the Central government and the Reserve Bank of India to follow up on his complaint.

The LGT Bank in Liechtenstein has given the Indian government a list of nearly 30 Indians who operated undeclared bank accounts there. It's not clear if the raids against the Mehtas are connected to that list, which has been shared with the Supreme Court by the government.

Income Tax officials also searched the offices of Mayfair Realtors and Vestra Infrastructure in Mumbai - companies which had loaned money to the Lilavati Trust in 2002.

Responding to the raids, the hospital, in a statement said, "The I-T Department today has conducted a search operation at the Lilavati hospital which is their routine work and we are cooperating with them."