Black money: Looking for stash in India

Bengaluru, May 27: The Swiss authorities naming the Indians alleged to have stashed money abroad is a good start no doubt. While the Swiss authorities await replies from these persons, the Indian Income Tax Department will pick it up from to dig deeper and find out where else these persons could have stashed away the cash.

It becomes quite clear while looking into some of the cases that money laundering was an extremely easy job to undertake until a few years back. In the year 2012, the Income Tax Department conducted a raid at near Delhi at the premises of Gurjit Kochar, it was alleged that someone in the government had tipped them off which ensured a large chunk of money had been moved out well in advance.

IT department officials will not wait until the Swiss Authorities give out more details regarding these persons whose names were revealed yesterday. An independent probe will be conducted in India taking the issue further.

The Swiss authorities have given all these persons whose names were revealed yesterday to file a written reply explaining the money that has been parked abroad. If the replies are satisfactory then the Swiss authorities would not need to share any further details with India. However if the answers are not filed or are unsatisfactory, then India will be privy to all the details relating to the accounts in question.

These are things that take time, an officer informed Oneindia. The information given by the Swiss is a tip of the iceberg and nothing prevents the IT department from conducting an independent probe against all these persons. As a first step, the IT department can find out every rupee that has been parked in India and recover it.

The next part of the probe would be to find out where else these persons have parked their money and steps could be undertaken to bring the same back as well, the officer also informed. Fresh initiatives would be taken against all such persons whose names have been disclosed and the probe will commence shortly the officer also informed.

The Gurjit Kochar case:

The IT department in particular would be keen on probing into the Gurjit Kochar case. The 35 year old who is the son in law of slain liquor baron, Ponty Chadha was named by the Swiss Authorities yesterday. His name has cropped up in India several times in the past and it was his premises that was raided in the year 2012.

However during that raid at Delhi, the IT department was unable to recover all the money as they had alleged that someone had tipped off regarding the raid which gave them ample time to move a large chunk of the money. The IT department would now want to find out the exact manner in which all the money was raised and also a transaction worth Rs 38 crore. It was alleged that Kochar at the behest of his father in law had moved money through Dubai.

OneIndia News