Switzerland Govt decides to share with India list of Indians suspected of stashing ill-gotten wealth in hidden bank accounts
The Government of Switzerland has decided to share with the Indian Government the list of Indians suspected to have black money stashed in Swiss banks. This comes as a major boost for the NDA Government, which has accorded bringing black money back top priority. In line with this agenda, the Modi Government’s first decision after coming to power was to constitute a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to track down black money stashed abroad.
Swiss authorities have informed their Indian counterparts that the list of people suspected of holding black money accounts has been prepared and will be shared in due course.
The names of these Indian individuals and entities had come under the scanner of Swiss authorities during an ongoing exercise to identify real beneficiaries and owners of funds held in various banks operating in Switzerland, a senior Swiss Government official said.
“These individuals and entities are suspected to have held un-taxed money in Swiss banks through structures like trusts, domiciliary companies and other legal entities based out of countries other than India,” the official said. The details are being shared with India on a ‘spontaneous’ basis and are different from the information sought earlier by the Indian authorities on the basis of ‘leaked’ or ‘stolen’ lists of certain banks, including the so-called ‘HSBC list’, he added.
He, however, refused to divulge the identity of these people and entities, as also the quantum of funds held by them in Swiss banks, citing confidentiality clause of the bilateral information exchange treaty between two countries.
The Swiss official confirmed that authorities in Switzerland were keen to work with the new Government in India and would provide all necessary support to the newly set up SIT on black money.
When asked about rise in Indian deposits in Swiss banks, he said these funds were held by clients who have declared themselves as Indian and were unlikely to be ill-gotten wealth.
What had baffled the Swiss authorities was the meteoric rise in deposits by Indians in their banks as compared to nationals of other countries. According to an estimate released by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) recently, the total deposit of Indians (individuals and trusts) at the end of 2013 accounted for 1.95 billion Swiss francs held directly by the depositors and another 77.3 million Swiss francs held through “fiduciaries” and wealth managers. This amounts to nearly Rs 14,000 crore. During the same period, the SNB witnessed a decline in deposits from their foreign clients across the world (other than India) that stood at 1.32 trillion Swiss francs (over Rs 90 lakh crore).
It was seeing the enormity of black money funds that senior advocate Ram Jethmalani had approached the Supreme Court to seek ways to bring back the undisclosed funds kept by Indians abroad to evade tax. The Supreme Court on July 4, 2011 directed the Centre to constitute SIT headed by two judges and comprising heads of all law enforcement and crime prevention wings of the Government.
Dragging its feet on the issue for three years, the UPA Government had approached the apex court at the fag end of its tenure seeking modification of the order. The court rejected the plea and on May 1, 2014 set a three-week deadline to constitute SIT headed by Justice MB Shah as Chairman and Justice Arijit Pasayat as Vice-Chairman. After the Modi Government came to power, the Cabinet was convened and approval to the formation of SIT was its first decision.
The UPA Government had in April submitted to the Supreme Court a list of 26 individuals who were account holders in lichtenstein Bank in Germany but only after it ran the risk of being taken to task by the apex court for its indifferent attitude of sharing details about black money holders abroad.