Officers' Choice: Income Tax Search Against ABD That Owns World's Largest Selling Whisky

The Mumbai income tax department is conducting a search operation against Allied Blenders and Distillers (ABD), a company owned by the family of India's liquor baron Kishor Chhabria, sources told Businessworld. 

Chhabria is the non-executive chairman of the company and his family members together own nearly the entire stake in the company. ABD owns the brand Officer’s Choice, the world’s largest-selling whiskey brand by volume. The tax department was conducting searches at the offices of Allied Blenders and Distillers in Mumbai, the sources said.

ABD is seeking to raise around Rs 2000 crore through the company's initial public offer (IPO) and has filed documents with market regulator Sebi. This is the second effort by ABD to tap the Indian markets with its maiden IPO.

An email regarding the tax department searches sent on ABD's official emails given on the company website remained unanswered. None of the company executives could be reached for comments on the matter on any of the contact phone numbers given on the company website.

ABD was founded by Chhabria in 1988 in Kolkata. Prior to establishing ABD, he was the managing director of Shaw Wallace, an Indian liquor manufacturer based in Kolkata.

Palak Shah

BW Reporters The writer is author of the book: The Market Mafia - Chronicle of India’s High-Tech Stock Market Scandal & The Cabal That Went Scot-Free. Palak has been a journalist in Mumbai for nearly two decades now. He has worked for most premier pink papers including The Economic Times, Business Standard and The Financial Express and The Hindu Business Line. He was drawn to crime reporting at the age of 19 but a few years in the field told him that the fabric of crime had changed and the organised gangs, as Mumbai had witnessed during the eighties, no longer existed. It was business and markets that dominated the scenario. His passion to unravel the intricacies of the ‘white money’ economy led Palak to the world of finance and regulations.