84. Continue crackdown on Benami properties and illegal foreign accounts; bringing fugitive economic offenders back
Status: The war against black money stashed abroad gained pace in the second tenure of the Modi govt. With over 400 assessment orders passed, the govt managed to raise tax demand of over Rs 15,500 crore under the black money act. Additionally, the government brought the undisclosed income of over Rs 22,250 crore to tax in the cases of HSBC, Panama papers, and Paradise papers. On the other hand, though, the crackdown on Benami properties lost momentum as shown in the table below. 10 persons have been declared fugitive economic offenders by the courts since 2018; namely, Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara, Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Hitesh Kumar Narendrabhai Patel, Junaid Iqbal Memon, Hajra Iqbal Memon, Asif Iqbal Memon & Ramachandran Vishwanathan. Out of these 4 have been deported to India by Enforcement Directorate. The amount of fraud involved in these cases is over Rs 40,000 crore, while the govt has seized their assets amounting to Rs 15,110 crore. i ii iii iv v vi