Finance Minister Arun Jaitley addresses a press conference in Delhi
New names who have been added to a list of Indians with accounts at HSBC in Geneva will be investigated as part of an expansive inquiry into black money, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today, though sources caution that some of the accounts could be legitimate.
Here are the 10 latest developments in this big story:
So far, there were about 600 Indians who were believed to have accounts at HSBC. Their names were shared in 2011 with India by France after an HSBC employee leaked the data.
But the list has now doubled to 1,200 Indians with a collective holding of 25,000 crores, according to new information accessed by the newspaper The Indian Express. The Finance Minister was referring to these additional accounts in his comments today. "Some new names have been revealed whose veracity would be checked by authorities," said the Finance Minister, but cautioned that "names aren't enough. Authentic evidence of the accounts is necessary."
The government's operation to recover black money - ordered by the Supreme Court in 2009 - is being monitored by a team of experts who form a Special Investigation Team. It includes retired judges.
Sources on this team told NDTV today that while some names are common to the old and new HSBC lists, both will be carefully examined. The original list of 600 Indians was based on information for the period 1999-2000. The new list is compiled with far more recent data from 2006-2007.
The Special Investigation Team had been asked to determine which Indians held illicit accounts and complete their prosecution by the end of next month. However, sources on the panel stressed that this deadline applies to the old list of 600 Indians, and the panel's larger inquiry will continue after the end of March.
With a health warning that the HSBC lists club legal and illegal accounts, the Special Investigating Team has called an emergency meeting today to discuss the new revelations.
The government has begun legal proceedings against 60 people who allegedly had more than a total of 1,500 crores rupees in illegal foreign accounts. Tax evasion in these cases has allegedly been established through independent investigation by Income Tax authorities.
The Supreme Court agreed in 2009 to monitor the government's exercise to recover black money.
In last year's election campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to bring back crores worth of black money.
However, like the earlier government, his administration has been criticised by the Supreme Court for the pace and depth of its efforts.
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