The I-T department, which surveyed HSBC's Indian operations in February on the suspicion that the foreign bank was colluding with its Swiss counterpart to help Indians stash black money abroad, said it has found no incriminating evidence against the bank.
The five-year delay in investigations into the HSBC's leaked list of account holders who illegally stashed funds abroad seems to have given enough room to the foreign bank and most of the tax evaders to escape the income-tax scrutiny.
The I-T department, which surveyed HSBC's Indian operations in February on the suspicion that the foreign bank was colluding with its Swiss counterpart to help Indians stash black money abroad, said it has found no incriminating evidence against the bank.
This follows the poor tax recovery from the black money list so far, of a meagre Rs 237 crore – a fraction of what was initially claimed by the government.
"No incriminate documents have been recovered in the survey. The direct link between the Indian arm and foreign clients has not been established. However, the finalisation of the case would be done only after the assessment," said a senior I-T official.
"The survey has been concluded and the report is being sent to assessment wing of the department," said officials.
"The action (survey/searches) should have been done in the same year when the government got its first list on black money," a senior I-T official told dna.
A list of more than 600 Indians who held accounts at HSBC in Geneva branch was leaked out in 2010. "Now, it's too late to get substantial evidence against the respective entities," said officials.
The I-T department has done an extensive survey after the second list of HSBC account holders leaked by whistle-blowers, featured 1,668 Indians holding secret accounts in the bank.
dna has learnt that the representatives of HSBC had allegedly assured its customers that details of their accounts would not be made available to tax officials. Also, I-T had suspected that the bank officials were allegedly advising their customers on tax evasion.
At the time of survey, taxman had claimed that HSBC Geneva, which seems to have not disclosed client information to law-enforcement agencies, helping clients evade huge amount of tax and this could be possible without the help of Indian counterparts.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) monitoring the probe into the black money case informed the supreme court last month that only Rs 237 crore has been recovered so far, after raising a tax demand of Rs 4,500 crore.
According to I-T, out of 628 HSBC accounts, 403 were found actionable under the I-T Act. It also said 422 of these accounts pertained to Indian residents. The government has been able to gather fresh evidence from France regarding 575 HSBC account holders, said SIT in its last report submitted in May.
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