Black money: SIT asks agencies to share data on ongoing case

June 29, 2014

New Delhi, Jun 29: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money has sought details of all major cases of tax evasion and criminal financial fraud being probed by various investigative agencies which are mandated to keep a check on such instances.

Black moneySources said that the SIT headed by retired Supreme Court Justice M B Shah has asked the 11 departments on its panel to furnish fine details of these cases and the status of their probes, including any problems being faced by investigators in taking the cases forward for prosecution or penalty.

The member departments/agencies of SIT are the Department of Revenue (under the Ministry of Finance), RBI, Intelligence Bureau, Enforcement Directorate, CBI, Income Tax department, Narcotics Control Bureau, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Financial Intelligence Unit, Research and Analysis Wing and the Foreign Tax and Tax Research wing under the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).

The sources said the SIT has asked for the data in order to understand the trends and magnitude of the menace of black money and generation of illegal funds in the country, which is done through a variety of ways like evasion of taxes and duties, flouting of foreign exchange laws, creation of disproportionate assets, creation of 'benami' properties within the country and outside and laundering of wealth obtained through illegal and corrupt means.

The departments, they said, are in the process of submitting these details in the stipulated format to SIT and these will be taken up during the next meeting of the panel, expected to take place some time next month.

RBI has recently directed all banks and financial institutions to provide the information and documents sought by the high-profile panel.

The SIT, formed upon the directions of Supreme Court, had its first meeting earlier this month here at the North Block office of the Finance Ministry.

The high-level team has also decided to look into the contentious issue of secrecy clauses in India's tax treaties with Switzerland and other countries.

Retired apex court judge Arijit Pasayat is the Vice Chairman of the SIT while top officials of the 11 high-profile agencies and departments are its members.

After the first meeting of the SIT, the government had said the detailed modalities of proceeding further with the Supreme Court mandate were discussed and the road map decided.

The SIT's mandate, as notified, requires it to go into "all issues relating to matters concerning and arising from unaccounted monies of Hasan Ali Khan and Kashinath Tapariah".

Pune-based Khan, a stud farm owner, was arrested by Enforcement Directorate in connection with money laundering and tax evasion cases. Tapariah is his aide.

The other tasks of SIT include all investigations already started and pending or awaiting to be initiated with respect to any other known instances of the stashing away of unaccounted cash in foreign bank accounts by Indians or other entities operating in India.

The panel has also been empowered "to further investigate even where charge-sheets have been previously filed and SIT may register further cases and conduct appropriate investigations and initiate proceedings for the purpose of bringing back unaccounted monies unlawfully kept in bank accounts abroad."

The SIT will also keep the apex court informed about all major developments by filing periodic status reports in this regard, the government notification had said.

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News Network
April 4,2020

Kochi, Apr 4: France on Saturday evacuated 112

French citizens stranded in Kerala and Tamil Nadu in a special Air India flight, official sources said here.

The Embassy of France had made a request to the Kerala government to facilitate the journey of the French citizens stranded due to the lockdown announced by the central government to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus.

The French citizens, mostly tourists and those who came for Ayurvedic treatment, were brought here by the state tourism department 24 days ahead of their trip.

They underwent a medical examination before boarding the flight for Paris from Cochin International Airport at 08.13 am on Saturday, officials said.

The Air India flight was chartered by the French government for evacuating its citizens in various cities in India including Kochi, Bengaluru and Mumbai.

On Friday, Gulf nation Oman had evacuated its 46 citizens stranded in Kochi in an Oman Air flight.

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News Network
February 12,2020

New Delhi, Feb 12: The Centre on Wednesday said the NRC data in Assam is safe even though some technical issues were visible and that will be resolved soon.

The Union Home Ministry clarification came in view of reports that data of the final list of the National Register of Citizens has been made offline from its official website.

"The NRC data is safe. Some technical issues are in visibility on cloud. These are being resolved soon," a home ministry spokesperson said.

The data was not available for a couple of days and it created panic in the public, mostly among the people excluded from the list as the rejection certificates were yet to be issued.

NRC State Coordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma accepted that the data has been made offline, but refuted the allegation of any "malafide" intent in it.

The cloud service for the huge set of data was provided by IT firm Wipro and their contract was till October 19 last year. However, this was not renewed by the previous coordinator.

So, the data got offline from December 15 after it was suspended by Wipro, Sarma said.

He said the state coordination committee had decided to do necessary formalities in its meeting on January 30 and wrote to the Wipro during the first week of February.

"Once Wipro makes the data live, it will be available for public. We hope people will be able to access it in the next 2-3 days," Sarma said.

The complete detail of exclusion and inclusion of bonafide Indian citizens in the NRC was uploaded on its official website http://www.nrcassam.nic.in after the final list was published on August 31, 2019.

The final NRC was published by excluding 19,06,657 persons. A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included out of 3,30,27,661 applicants.

After the earlier NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela relinquished the charge on November 11 following his transfer to home state Madhya Pradesh on a direction from the Supreme Court, Sarma was appointed in his place on November 9.

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News Network
June 27,2020

New Delhi, Jun 27: Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai on Saturday called an emergency meeting here to discuss the situation following a locust attack in neighbouring Gurugram.

The minister also directed the administration to be alert, an official said.

"After the emergency meeting, an advisory will be issued on steps to be taken to deal with the situation," Rai told PTI.

He asked the officials of the Agriculture department to make field visits to areas close to Gurugram.

The development secretary, divisional commissioner, director, Agriculture department, and the district magistrates of South Delhi and West Delhi will attend the meeting, the official said.

Earlier in the day, the skies over many parts of Gurugram turned dark as swarms of locusts descended on the town.

However, the migratory pests are likely to spare the national capital for now, officials said.

The swarms of locusts, spread across two kilometres, moved from west to east. They entered Gurugram around 11.30 am, K L Gurjar of the Locust Warning Organisation, Ministry of Agriculture, told PTI.

The pests, he said, were headed towards Faridabad and Palwal in Haryana.

Alarmed at the invasion of the locusts, which settled on trees, rooftops and plants, many residents of Gurugram shared videos from their high-rise perches.

In May, India battled a devastating desert locust outbreak. The crop-destroying swarms first attacked Rajasthan and then spread to Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

According to experts, broadly four species of locusts are found in India – desert locust, migratory locust, Bombay locust and tree locust. The desert locust is considered the most destructive.

It multiplies very rapidly and is capable of covering 150 kilometers in a day.

This insect, a type of a grasshopper, can eat more than its body weight. A one square kilometer of locust swarm containing around 40 million locusts can in a day eat as much food as 35,000 people.

Experts blame the growing menace of desert locusts on climate change. They say breeding of locusts is directly related to soil moisture and food availability.

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