The Excise and Taxation Officer (ETO), G S Garcha, along with a team of eight persons reached Beri Marbles’ godowns located at Sarabha Nagar this afternoon to assess the goods. However, the owner, Sudarshan Beri, accused the officer “of being rude to him”. Later, Beri sought help of other marble dealers and the BJP leader, Kamal Chaitly, to join him and stopped the exercise. The dealers also sat on a dharna to protest against the E&T’s ‘highhandedness’ and blocked the traffic.

To handle the situation, Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner (DETC) M S Kondlus, Assistant Excise and Taxation Commissioners (AETCs) Amrit Kaur Gill, D K Verma and H.P.S Ghotra rushed to the spot.

After a half-an-hour meeting with the marble dealers, the officials decided to assess the Beri Marbles’s godowns tomorrow.

Meanwhile, DETC M S Kondlus denied that any officer misbehaved with the owner. “Yes, they asked for some documents from the marble unit owner and afterwards the controversy started,” he added.

Kondlus said many a times marble units have their goods undervalued and our team went there to cross check the same. “After the entire incident, we did little stock checking at the Sarabha Nagar godown and the rest will be done tomorrow. The main godown of the company is at Daad village which again will be checked tomorrow.”