A Whistle blower, who is an ex-employee in HSBC Bank has been leaked the Black money holder's list yesterday. He said that HSBC Bank has helped several members to make their money flow into their bank with no tax."
Switzerland has been ranked in the first place and India has been in 16th position."
A multi-country, multi-year investigation by an International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) into the identities of thousands of Swiss account holders has the potential to raise yet another political storm in India. The laundry list published by "The Indian Express" (9 February) discloses the names of several prominent businessmen and women, many Indian politicians, especially Congress-linked ones, and ex-bureaucrats, among others.
Very sad part in this is that 628 Indians are holding accounts in the swiss banks accounting the total deposits to 25,420 Crore rupees. The HSBC list was stolen in 2008 and disclosed to the French authorities, who then handed over a part of it to the Indian government in 2011. Names of half the list are already with the SIT, and the tax authorities have already begun collecting the tax dues.
The political names on the list include former "UPA minister Preneet Kaur, ex-Congress MP Annu Tandon, the family members of late Congress minister and Gandhi family loyalist Vasant Sathe, and Narayan Rane, his wife and family (ex-Sena, now in Congress). A more direct link to the Sena is Smita Thackeray, daughter-in-law of Bal Thackeray".
The businesspersons mentioned in the list include (in alphabetical order) the "Ambani brothers, a branch of the Birlas (Yash), the Burmans (of Dabur), the Chhabrias (of Shaw Wallace), the Dalmias (several branches of the family), Naresh Goyal (of Jet Airways), Shravan Gupta (Emaar MGF), the Nandas (of Escorts), the Neotias (ex-Gujarat Ambuja), Swraj Paul (an Indian-origin UK citizen), the Rahejas (builders and realtors) Salgaokars, and several diamond traders". Some of the accounts are corporate accounts, others belong to Indians who may not be subject to Indian laws, and several others have minuscule balances in their accounts.
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance group who owns Network 18 said that " neither RIL nor Mr Mukesh Ambani have or had any illegitimate bank accounts anywhere in the world".
The SIT (Special Investigation Team) found that nearly half the 628 names it had received earlier had zero balances. In the total list of 628, the SIT found that 201 were non-residents or were otherwise untraceable, and 289 accounts had zero balances. This means only 339 persons can be tracked or queried for violations of Indian laws.
Responding on this, the "Finance Minister Mr.Arun Jaitley" said that, "the Indian Government is investigating the accounts and a serious action will be taken on Black money account holders, he replied in an interview".
