New Delhi (PTI): Assets worth more than Rs 4,800 crore were seized during searches conducted by the Income Tax department against 2,841 groups in the last four financial years, the government informed Lok Sabha on Monday.

Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said these searches are undertaken to find "suspected or identified large-scale tax evasion".

He shared the figures in this regard as part of a written reply furnished in the Lok Sabha.

The data pertains to financial years 2019-20, 2020-22, 2021-22 and 2022-23 (provisional figures till January 2023) and Chaudhary said a total of 2,841 groups were searched by the I-T department leading to seizure of assets worth Rs 4,863.12 crore.

The highest seizure of assets took place during the last fiscal of 2022-23 (data till January 2023) at Rs 1,533.23 crore with searches being conducted against a total of 602 groups, the data stated.

Properties worth Rs 1,159.59 crore were seized after searches against 686 groups in 2021-22, assets worth Rs 880.83 crore were seized after action against 569 groups in 2020-21 and assets worth Rs 1,289.47 crore were seized during searches against 984 groups in 2019-20.