Black money trail: Supreme Court asks Government to locate Hasan Ali

New Delhi, Feb 10 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Central Government to tell it where was the country's top tax evader Hasan Ali, who has stashed away a huge amount of money in banks in Switzerland and other countries.

The apex court bench of Justice B Sudershan Reddy and Justice SS Nijjar told Solicitor eneral Gopal Subramanium to give it Ali's status.

Acting on a PIL filed by eminent jurist Ram Jethmalanai and others, the court pointed out that the Government was asked the same questions the last time as well.

Meanwhile, the Government in reply to the Supreme Court's statements assured the court that it would soon make public the names of persons who have stashed money in foreign banks. This came after a case was registered against them.

The Government also informed the court that the Letters Rogatory have been issued to authorities in Hong Kong, Singapore, the UAE, USA and UK in the black money case.

Ali, who owns stud farms among other businesses, is suspected to have parked eight billion dollars in an account with UBS AG, a bank in Switzerland, and was raided by the I-T department in January 2007.

The Centre on Wednesday filed an affidavit before the apex court in connection with the case and pledged to take a host of measures to retrieve it.

The government also informed the apex court that it has completed negotiations for Tax Informations Exchange Agreement (TIEA) with ten countries where the money is believed to have been stashed.

The ten countries are Bahamas, Bermuda, British Virgin Island, Isle of Man, Cayman Island, British Island of Jersey, Monaco, St Kitts and Nevis, Argentina and Marshall Island.

The Government had earlier claimed that it had identified 26 citizens, who had parked their ill-gotten wealth abroad as revealed by the German government in Liechtenstein Bank there, but avoided making the names public.

According to the data provided by the Swiss bank, India has more black money than rest of the world combined.

The UK has 390 billion dollars in black money, Russia has 470 billion dollars and India tops the list with almost 1500 billion dollars. (ANI)