Staying firm on its stand that no citizen can be granted any grace period for making any further deposit of demonetized old currency notes of
Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, the Centre informed Supreme Court on Friday that the Government is trailing accounts of 18 lakh depositors with suspicious transactions of which 3.78 lakh accounts have been categorized as ‘high risk’ against which inquiry is still on.
Responding to a set of petitions requesting the Court to allow grace period for depositing the demonetised currency by the end of June 2017, the Centre said that the total amount to be deposited by petitioners is a sum of Rs 66.8 lakh. Upon verification of the petitioners’ bank accounts, none were KYC compliant at the relevant time, said the affidavit filed by Ministry of Finance.
Following the demonetization scheme getting over on December 30, 2016, the Income Tax Department initiated ‘Operation Clean Money’ on January 31, 2017, the result of which led to ‘identification of approximately 18 lakh persons who appeared to be not in line with tax payer’s profile,’ said the affidavit.
At present, more than 12 lakh online responses from 8.38 lakh distinct PANs/persons have already been received, the Centre said
The Centre said that allowing deposits till March 31, 2017 only to those citizens who were abroad between November 8 and December 30, 2016 was a conscious decision taken by the Centre and the same was specified in the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of liabilities) Ordinance, 2016 as the Parliament was then not in session.