Expose on overseas black money of Indians being pursued: Jaitley

India has filed 164 prosecution cases against alleged holders of illegal overseas accounts with HSBC bank, amounting to an assessment of Rs 8,000 crore, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said here on Saturday.

Addressing a press conference following the conclusion of the Income Declaration Scheme, Jaitley said several steps had been taken by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government to ensure that black money of Indians -- both within and outside the country -- is unearthed.

In this regard he mentioned the setting up of the Special Investigation Team to probe such cases, the rehaul of the Benami Act to help the state take over such assets and the follow-up on expose by various agencies of wealth stashed abroad, along with a specific scheme.

"We also acted on the disclosures by the International Consortium of Journalists -- there has been a detection of Rs 5,000 crore of undisclosed deposits in foreign accounts," he said.

This apart, the Finance Minister said, investigations into what are called "Panama Papers" case led to 250 references being made to other countries, asking for details about tax evaders.

"As a result, there has been a quantum jump in searches and survey has resulted in seizure of Rs 1,986 crore as well as undisclosed income of Rs 56,378 crore in the last two and half years," he said.

The Finance Minister also said the upgradation of IT capabilities of the various departments has led to non-intrusive methods of detection of tax evasion -- Rs 16,000 crore was received as tax out of one such system and 3,626 prosecution cases were filed in the last two and half years.

"This is more than double as compared to previous two years."

--IANS

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