The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money is learnt to have sought the annual financial inspection report of HSBC India for the year 2012 from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as part of its probe on alleged money laundering against the global giant.
According to sources privy to the development, the RBI is learnt to have assured the SIT that the report will be provided to it at the earliest. With HSBC’s offices around the world facing investigations over the aforementioned allegations, it is also under the scanner of the Income Tax Department authorities in India with the SIT probing the black money angle.
RBI prepares financial inspection reports of companies which have operations in India on an annual basis, and with HSBC facing all round probe, the SIT is keen to investigate whether HSBC India’s channels were allegedly used as a conduit for carrying out alleged hawala transactions, sources said.
Meanwhile when contacted by The Pioneer, the spokesperson for HSBC India declined to comment on the development. Sources further informed that the SIT on its part may also seek details of the last 16 years financial transactions of HSBC India from RBI to probe the aforementioned allegations.
The RBI will soon be providing the financial inspection report for 2012 to the SIT, which is headed by retired Justice M B Shah. Shah is learnt to have requested RBI Deputy Governor HR Khan for providing the financial inspection report of HSBC India, sources informed.
This development comes just three days after the Income Tax department conducted a “survey” operation at the Mumbai office of HSBC India in connection with the black money probe against it and certain Indians who held accounts in its Switzerland branch.
Agencies reported that sleuths drawn from the investigation and assessment wings of the Income Tax Department visited the bank’s office in Fort area in Mumbai on February 22 and made “inquiries” related to their probe against the global banking giant and its operations.
They said the bank has been issued notices in this regard earlier and the latest action was part of its “survey” operation where tax officials visit the business premises of an entity under probe, the agencies were quoted as saying. This action from the Income Tax Department came at a time when the tax department is expected to file a complaint against HSBC Bank, Geneva, for allegedly “abetting” tax evasion in India by way of unauthorisedly operating accounts of its citizens in its overseas branch, the agencies reported.
The bank, in its annual report published on February 24, had also said that Indian tax authorities had issued summons and request for information to “an HSBC company in India”. The probe in the HSBC-Geneva cases, involving 628 entities, recently gathered momentum as a number of cases under the category are getting time-barred by the end of this financial year, meaning they cannot be acted against after the said time period.