chennai the year 2017 was one of crackdowns but the aftereffects of such actions by tax and enforcement agencies had little to showthe income tax enforcement directorate and the cbi had their share of action there was the mother of all income tax crackdowns in november when 1800 sleuths targeted the v k sasikala clan also ed arrested sand mining baronj sekhar reddy and his associates and the cbi searched the premises of former union minister jayanthi natarajan but till the yearend not many of these operations have translated into spectacular recoveries or criminal proceedingsfor four days since november 9 more than 185 premises belonging to the mannarkudi clan were searched across the state dubbed as the biggestever such exercise the search involved about 1800 taxmen drawn from different wings of the income tax department though officials bragged off the record that evasion worth about 1200 had been unearthed searches had nothing impressive to show in terms of cash and gold seizures the mecca of aiadmk workers the poes garden residence of the late j jayalalithaa was searched but what was found on campus and why it came under it lens are unknownincome tax act prohibits officials from going to the media and explain the seizures still certain unofficial leaks are made on significant findings but recovery of cash and other valuables during this search was so low that the sleuths did not talk about it the documents valued at more than 1200 crore pertain to properties and investments and they would require further scrutiny said an officialit was very much unlike last years searches on sand mining baron reddy and his associates during that search more than 33 crore in new currency notes and 9689 crore in demonetised high denomination notes besides gold bars were seized based on these searches the ed registered a case treating the assets as proceeds of crime and cbi had a separate case citing suspected involvement of bank officials in converting such a large sum of demonetised currencies into new ones though both these cases are standing on a weak wicket and reddy has moved the madras high court to quash them the searches did lead to a series of related crackdownsnothing of that sort has happened in this years searches the sole exception is that of state health minister c vijayabaskar whose premises were searched by the it in april couple of days ahead of the previouslyscheduled rk nagar byelection taxmen claimed to have found diary entries showing distribution of rs 89 crore to voters in the constituency though the bypoll was cancelled and an fir registered on a complaint from the election commission the fate of incriminating materials recovered from the ministers home is not knownhouses of samathuva makkal katchi leader and actor sarathkumar and tamil nadu dr mgr medical university vicechancellor s geethalakshmi were searched but nothing has come of them so far there has been no allegation of any wrongdoing eitherpostsearch all communication between the assessee and the