60 prosecutions launched, any additional names will be brought under probe: Jaitley

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The minister also stated that the government had said a few months back that prosecutions were being launched against the accounts which were being found illegal. “Around three months back, three prosecutions had been launched. Now, approximately 60 prosecutions have been launched. And the government has said that when prosecution is launched after concluding investigations, those names become public when they are put in the cases in the courts,” he said.

Stating that the out of the “details that have come today, a majority of names are those which the Government of India or the Revenue Department already have”, the Finance Minister said, “The question is not about the names…but also the evidence of the accounts of those names. And evidence in addition to the stolen data is required, so that a strong case can be made.”

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“Just having names wouldn’t lead to adequate action in the court. If the evidence in relation of that name is authentic…the action is only going to be successful then,” he added. “Doing something without evidence and then not being able to prove it wouldn’t be very profitable,” Jaitley said.

The Finance Minister also said that in the 628 accounts that came to light earlier, “some had names, some names were identifiable…some were not”.

FULL COVERAGE: SWISS LEAKS

“In the past 7-8 months, prompt proceedings have begun on this. And in these proceedings, the first thing is to identify the names. A great number of them have already been identified. There are some very general kind of names which don’t have an address or other details and hence they are difficult to identify,” he added.

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“After identifying, assessment of around 350 account holders has been completed. The proceedings on penalty have begun. The assessment of the remaining accounts will be over by March 31. As per law, action will be taken,” Jaitley further said.

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The Finance Minister also said that the Narendra Modi government had sent a delegation to talk to the Swiss authorities in October 2014 “because the evidence lies in Switzerland”.

“Switzerland said that since this is stolen data, they can’t cooperate on stolen data as per their policy. Following that our team and the Swiss authorities entered a joint agreement, on October 15 (2014), that even if you don’t cooperate on basis of stolen data… if we are able to provide some evidence in addition to the stolen data…so the Swiss authorities agreed…then on basis of that additional evidence that you provide, we’ll confirm or deny the correctness of that evidence and we will cooperate in giving the details on basis of that evidence,” Jaitley said.

He also said that during his Davos visit last month, he had met the Finance and Economy ministers and the Swiss revenue officials and he “tried to take this matter forward with them”.

“In our assessment proceedings, there are some case where people have admitted to having accounts. The question that was raised was that is an admission by an assesee…will it be regarded as additional evidence…to which they said that it would be regarded as evidence. So on that basis, we have got more independent evidence,” Jaitley said.

He also said it “may be remembered that this money and these account details are of 2006-07” and that “these names only came in 2010”. “And thus, those people had a lot of time to deal with these accounts and to deal with the money. We started our action in 2014…after May, 2014. So that’s why penalty and prosecution are ways to punish the account holders and to get back the amount from them. Those proceedings are on,” he said, adding that while he couldn’t give much details but wanted to indicate that the “Revenue Department is in active touch with the informants”.