General Knowledge-Current Affairs-Centre submits to SC list of 627 Indians holding illegal accounts in foreign banks

Centre submits to SC list of 627 Indians holding illegal accounts in foreign banks

The Centre today gave to the Supreme Court a list of 627 Indians who have accounts in HSBC bank, Geneva. The documents containing correspondence with French authorities, names of the account holders and the status report of the probe conducted so far in black money cases have been submitted in separate sealed covers by the Attorney General.

However, the Apex Court did not open the sealed covers. It said that the envelopes will be sent to the Special Investigation Team, SIT and will be opened by Chairman M B Shah and Vice Chairman Arijit Pasayat, both former judges of the Supreme Court. They will decide on the future course of action. It asked the SIT to conduct probe against the account holders and submit its status report of its probe as expeditiously as possible by the end of November.

The Centre has submitted that almost half of the account holders are resident Indians, who can be prosecuted under the Income Tax laws and rest of them are Non-Resident Indians. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said that some of the account holders have already admitted to having accounts and have paid taxes. Most transactions in these accounts took place during 1999 and 2000 and the last date for completion and assessment in all these cases is March 31, 2015.

The apex court yesterday directed the Centre to submit all the names of Indian account holders in foreign banks.

The court has been monitoring the investigations into black money since 2009. In 2011, the court had asked for complete disclosure of information on Indians holding black money abroad.