Income Tax Department

The Income Tax Department functions in the book as a recurring, often decisive, arm of the state that reaches into the lives of Mumbai's underworld women, exposing the vast, unexplained wealth that criminal enterprise generates. Its most consequential appearance comes in 2005, when a raid on the suburban bungalow of Tarannum Khan, the celebrated bar dancer known as the crown of Mumbai's nightlife, unearthed evidence that linked her to an international cricket betting racket. The raid not only destroyed Tarannum's career but also threatened to jeopardize the careers of some of the world's most celebrated sportsmen, making the department's intervention a turning point in her life and a scandal that dominated headlines for months. Yet the department's role in the book is broader than this single dramatic episode; it appears repeatedly as a force that probes the financial foundations of criminal power, sometimes with devastating effect, sometimes with frustrating impotence, and always revealing the deep entanglement of illicit wealth with the legitimate economy.

The Raid on Tanishq and the Fall of Tarannum Khan

The department's most vivid and consequential action in the book is the 2005 raid on Tarannum Khan's bungalow, Tanishq, in suburban Mumbai. Tarannum, a twenty-four-year-old bar girl who allegedly earned between Rs 1.5 and Rs 3 lakh every day and attracted a clientele of the affluent and famous, had built a life of glittering excess. The raid uncovered pieces of a puzzle that could not only land her in trouble but also jeopardise the careers of some of the world's most celebrated sportsmen. Her miseries began to unfold like a nightmare as she made the headlines almost every day. The raid exposed the scale of her wealth and its connection to illegal betting, transforming her from a pin-up girl into a symbol of the underworld's infiltration of sport. The department's action did not merely punish Tarannum; it threatened to unravel a network that reached into the highest echelons of international cricket, showing how a single tax investigation could ripple far beyond its immediate target.

The Department and the Gawli Family's Financial Empire

The Income Tax Department also intersects with the political and financial ambitions of Asha Gawli, the wife of gangster Arun Gawli. With her husband's encouragement, Asha launched a music company, Aai Music Service, which churned out several albums of paeans to her deity. Despite the songs having no takers, the company seemed to rake in big profits. When the Income Tax department announced amnesty under the Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS), the don admitted to an annual income of over Rs 1 crore. By 2004, when Arun filed the statutory income statement before fighting the state elections, the income of his music company had swelled to Rs 2 crore. The department's amnesty scheme provided a legal channel for the Gawlis to legitimize their wealth, and their willingness to declare such large incomes reveals the scale of the money flowing through their operations. The department's role here is less adversarial than in Tarannum's case; it offers a mechanism for laundering criminal profits into declared assets, highlighting how state instruments can be used to launder rather than merely punish.

The Department's Broader Reach: From Grain to Drugs

The department's presence in the book extends to the earlier generations of Mumbai's underworld, where it appears as a less visible but persistent force. In the 1940s, Jenabai Daaruwali, later known as Jenabai Chaavalwaali, worked as a broker for smuggled grain in Daana Bazaar, playing intermediary to wholesalers and dealers of lentils, pulses, sugar and basmati rice. Hoarding and trading in grain without a licence was illegal and punishable by law, and the police raided Jenabai's room at Chunawala building several times but never managed to get enough evidence to book her. While the police, not the Income Tax Department, conducted these raids, the episode establishes a pattern of state agencies failing to penetrate the informal economies that women like Jenabai operated. Similarly, Mahalaxmi Papamani, the drug queen of Sion-Koliwada, built a heroin empire that generated profits of around three lakh rupees per month, and the police tried to arrest her on several occasions but she always managed to escape conviction for want of evidence. The Income Tax Department's absence from these earlier cases is telling; it is only when wealth becomes visible—through property, music companies, or bungalows—that the department moves, suggesting that its power is limited to the formal economy that criminal wealth eventually enters.

The Department as a Mirror of Underworld Wealth

Across these episodes, the Income Tax Department serves as a mirror that reflects the scale and nature of underworld wealth. In the case of Sujata Nikhalje, the wife of Chhota Rajan, the department's role is indirect but significant. Sujata, known as 'Nani', built a construction company, Khushi Developers Private Ltd, named after her youngest daughter, and employed a powerful team of chartered accountants to handle the finances. She turned into a corporate don wife, meeting builders through the day and signing deals worth crores of rupees. The police, who had been tapping Sujata's phone lines, learned that her conversations with Rajan would often drift into the acquisition of land and deals, and they closed in on her. While the Income Tax Department is not explicitly mentioned in this case, the pattern of financial investigation and the use of accountants to legitimize illicit wealth points to the department's broader role in the book's world. The department's raids and investigations, whether on Tarannum's bungalow or through amnesty schemes, consistently reveal the same truth: the women of Mumbai's underworld accumulated fortunes that could not be explained by legitimate means, and the state's financial apparatus was the only instrument capable of exposing them, even if it could not always convict.