Hyderabad: The declaration of Rs10,000 unaccounted income by a city-based businessman under the Central government's Income Declaration Scheme (IDS) has turned out to be a hoax. As the businessman Banapuram Lakshman Rao failed to pay tax for his declared assets under the scheme before the deadline, Income Tax department officials raided his house in Film Nagar and his offices at RTC Cross Roads and Ramanthapur only to find that he was a fake.

The I-T department's raids started on Tuesday evening and continued till Wednesday morning. They found no assets worth crores but seized some documents from his possession. The businessman and his associates were being questioned by the I-T sleuths.

A native of Devara Yamjal under Hakimpet limits near Hyderabad, Lakshman Rao is the proprietor of BLR Builders and Developers and he is also one of the directors in four other companies. He did not have even Rs 1 crore, officials sources said. He is reported to have made this only to grab media attention.

Lakshman Rao was the first to declare such a huge unaccounted money under the IDS followed by another businessman Mahesh Shah who also declared Rs13,000 crore in Ahmedabad but later went back on his claim saying the money did not belong to him but some others.

These findings deal an embarrassing blow to the Centre’s claim of unearthing about Rs 65,000 crore of undeclared income through the voluntary IDS. It also calls into question the authenticity of other disclosures made under the scheme.