The Income Tax Department has conducted raids on three prominent hotels in Indore after uncovering alleged large-scale tax evasion through the use of customised restaurant management software, officials said on Monday.
According to sources familiar with the investigation, the hotels were found using a modified version of the widely used ‘Petpuja’ software to manipulate billing and financial records. During the searches, income tax officials recovered laptops, storage devices and other digital equipment that had reportedly been concealed at the residences of software operators and key personnel linked to the establishments.
‘Petpuja’ is a popular all-in-one restaurant management and point-of-sale (POS) software used across the hospitality industry. It integrates billing, inventory management, online food orders, customer databases, reporting systems and payroll functions, allowing seamless coordination between various departments of a restaurant or hotel. Investigators, however, allege that certain features within the customised software were exploited to suppress sales data and underreport income, thereby facilitating tax evasion.
Officials indicated that the operators of the international restaurant technology platform ‘Petpuja’ are under scrutiny for allegedly enabling mechanisms that allowed financial data to be hidden or altered. While the software itself is legally used by thousands of restaurants, the probe is focused on whether specific modifications or back-end controls were intentionally deployed to conceal taxable transactions.
The investigation has now been expanded beyond Indore, with the Income Tax Department examining whether similar practices are being followed by other restaurants and hotel chains using comparable software solutions in different cities. Sources said the department is analysing digital evidence to trace patterns of data suppression and undeclared revenue.
The Indore raids follow a similar action carried out in January this year at a major restaurant in another metropolitan city, where officials reportedly detected parallel methods of data manipulation using restaurant management software. In that case as well, hidden electronic devices were recovered and detailed forensic analysis was initiated.
Income tax authorities stated that further searches and summons are likely as the probe progresses. Officials emphasised that the department is increasingly focusing on technology-driven tax evasion and misuse of digital platforms, particularly in cash-intensive sectors such as hospitality and food services.
Read More: ICAI Releases Comprehensive ‘CAs’ Handbook on Writs’
