ED, I-T Dept pursuing

Hasan Ali tax evasion case: Pranab

New Delhi, Jan 25 (PTI) The government today said both theEnforcement Directorate (ED) and I-T Department are pursuingcases relating to the alleged tax evasion of up to USD 15billion and money laundering by Pune-based stud farm ownerHasan Ali.

"Investigation is still continuing...The case is beingpursued both by the Enforcement Directorate and the Income TaxDepartment," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reportershere.

Stating that there were several cases involved againstAli, including a double passport case, apart from avoidance oftaxes, Mukherjee said the ED had received information on threeSwiss bank accounts allegedly held by him, where no amountswere left.

"One account where 60,000 dollars were deposited, andnext day the amount was withdrawn. There was no trace ofthat," he said.

The Finance Minister said the government did receiveinformation on foreign bank accounts, including Swiss, andseized some documents which turned out to be forged.

"On the basis of forged document no information can begiven (by Swiss banks)," he added.

In January 2007, India had submitted a request for legalassistance to Swiss Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) for helpin the case of Ali, who first came under the radar ofauthorities in 2006.

His farm house in Pune was searched several times by thetax authorities and later the Enforcement Directorate got intothe act and initiated action against him on money launderingallegations.

After a search on the premises of Ali in 2007, I-Tdepartment had found one of the documents containinginformation which showed that he had around USD 8 billion inthe UBS AG, a Swiss Bank.

Based on the various documents, tax demand of Rs 71,846crore (around USD 15 billion) was raised by I-T department inDecember 2008.

Besides Ali, persons named in the case are his wifeRheema Hasan Ali, his associate Kashinath Tapuriah and hiswife Chandrika Tapuriah and a related entity RM Investment PvtLimited.

The Income Tax department had also seized Rs 90 lakh incash from Ali and his three properties were attached.