The Income Tax Department on Thursday said that cash deposits of Rs 2.89 lakh crore post note ban by 9.72 lakh persons in 13.33 lakh accounts were under radar, reported news agency PTI. Income Tax department said 14,000 properties of over Rs 1 crore each were under scrutiny as owners did not file income returns. Earlier yesterday, the Reserve Bank of India’s annual report revealed that 99% of the banned currency notes returned to the central bank, giving arsenal to the demonetisation naysayers that the unprecedented exercise was rendered useless by failing to catch black money, since all of it was legitimised by bringing it into the banking system.
The total number of suspicious transaction reports filed by banking companies in financial year 2016-17 was 473003, a whopping 706% more than what was filed in 2014-15, according to the RBI annual report 2016-17. In 2015-16, the total number of suspicious transaction report filed was 106273. According to Prevention of Money laundering Act, 2002 and Rules, every banking company needs to furnish details of suspicious transactions whether or not made in cash.
As per RBI annual report, 3,61,214 suspicious reports were filed by banks in 2016-17, while the corresponding numbers for financial institutions and intermediaries were 94,836 and 16,953 respectively. On November 8 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced a demonetisation drive, wherein, currency denominations of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes were stopped as legal tender.