Jeweller gets 2-year imprisonment for not disclosing Swiss Bank account

DEHRADUN: The court of the Dehradun chief judicial magistrate (CJM) has sentenced the owner of a famous jewellery showroom in the city to two years’ rigorous imprisonment for “hiding” his Swiss bank account from the income tax (I-T) department. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 8 lakh on Raju Verma, who owns Punjab Jewellers on Rajpur Road.A prosecution lawyer said the I-T department had found that Verma had Rs 92 lakh in his Swiss bank account in 2006, “which he had not disclosed to evade tax”. The jeweller has been convicted under Section 276 C (1) (wilful attempts to evade any tax) and Section 277 (false statement in verification) of the Income Tax Act 1961. The court, however, freed Verma on bail for a month to appeal in a higher court.Incidentally, the I-T department had received a written complaint in 2012 which claimed that Verma had a personal bank account in HSBC’s Geneva branch in Switzerland, which he had not disclosed to the government.“On the basis of the complaint, I-T department sleuths raided his house on Dehradun’s Curzon Road on March 14, 2012 and recovered important documents regarding his Swiss bank account. He neither took the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) permission to open the account and nor did he disclose the money deposited in it,” prosecution lawyer S M Jain said.After gathering evidence against the jeweller, the income tax department filed a complaint with the economic offences wing of the CJM court in Dehradun on April 4, 2015. During the trial, the prosecution examined six I-T department officials, including its commissioner and inspectors, to prove the offence.“In all, the I-T department filed 16 cases under Section 276 C (1) and 277 of the I-T Act, 1961 and he has been convicted under both sections,” Jain added. The Enforcement Directorate also initiated action against Verma a couple of months ago under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (Fema). An official told TOI that ED imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on Verma for violating Fema rules, which has already been paid by him.