New Delhi: The income tax department has provisionally attached assets worth Rs600 crore involved in 240 benami transactions since last November, an official statement said.
These are among the 400 cases identified in a probe in the last seven months, which cover immovable property deals in places like Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The transactions under probe include deposits in bank accounts as well as holding plots of land, flat and jewellery. A large part of the attached assets are in the form of immovable property.
The move follows a similar crackdown on suspicious transactions post demonetisation that resulted in identifying 60,000 cases of unaccounted wealth for detailed investigation under the ‘operation clean money’.
The government had banned high value currency notes of Rs500 and Rs1,000 on 8 November last year, replacing them with new ones in a bold attempt to flush out unaccounted wealth.
The statement said the probe was launched under the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016 which came into force on 1 November. The law prescribes prosecution of the beneficial owner and the abettor, which may result in rigorous imprisonment up to seven years and fine up to 25% of fair market value of the property.
Benami property includes movable as well as immovable and tangible or intangible property. The statement said that in one case in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, the benamidar, a driver, was found to be owner of land worth Rs7.7 crore. The beneficial owner was a Madhya Pradesh based listed company, his employer.
For effective implementation of the amended law, 24 dedicated benami prohibition units were set up all over the country last week. The department has also held searches on 10 senior government officials in the last one month with the idea of unearthing black money earned through corrupt practices and to introduce accountability and probity in public life, said the statement.