New Delhi: With still roughly a month to go, almost three-fourth of the Rs500 and Rs1000 notes under circulation have been deposited into the banking system. This has led to concerns that a large part of the black money has been laundered and legalized in collusion with errant bank officials.

Of the estimated Rs16 trillion in Rs500 and Rs1000 notes in circulation, more than Rs11.5 trillion has been deposited in the banking system so far, said people familiar with the development.

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced old Rs500 and Rs1000 notes will cease to be legal tender with effect from 9 November.

People were given time till 30 December to deposit their currency notes into bank accounts. The government had expected that only Rs11-12 trillion will come back into the banking system by the end of the deadline.

But with deposits rising at a steady pace, there are fears that a large part of the black money is being legalized using the poor.

Also read: Scale, discretion of note ban afforded limited time for preparation: Piyush Goyal

The income tax department in a statement on Friday said that they had found irregularities in the Jan Dhan accounts.

“Undisclosed moneys of approximately Rs1.64 crore deposited by persons who have never filed returns of income being below the taxable limits into their Jan Dhan accounts have already been detected at Kolkata, Midnapore, Ara (Bihar), Kochi and Varanasi. Rs40 Lakh has been seized from one such account in Bihar," the tax department said.

Allaying fears that tax evaders will go scot free, finance minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said, “By just depositing the money, it doesn’t mean that you can get away and do not have to pay tax that is due," he said.

The government is also focussing on bankers who are helping in this money laundering.

Also read: Demonetisation without replacement

The finance ministry in a statement on Friday said that action has been taken against 33 errant officials of state-owned banks.

“Some cases have come to notice, however, of officials involved in carrying out transactions which were irregular and violative of RBI’s (Reserve Bank of India) instructions. Action has been taken in such cases and 27 officials of various public sector banks have been placed under suspension and 6 officials have been transferred to non-sensitive posts," the statement said.

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