Panama Papers revelations: PM Modi wants first report in 15 days

As many as 500 names of Indians figure in The Panama Papers as having links with offshore companies set up law firm Mossack Fonseca in tax havens across the world.

New Delhi: Keen to probe the Panama Papers revelations at the earliest, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked for a report within 15 days.

As per The Indian Express – the newspaper which first released the Panama details – PM Modi has sought a report with a fortnight of it first appearing in the newspaper on April 4.

The newspaper said that PM Modi on his arrival from his five-day Belgium-US-Saudi Arabia official trip at around 1:30 am on the intermediate night of April 3-4, called officials at 7.30 am to discuss the Panama Papers issue.

Expressing concern, the PM asked them to ensure that the matter is probed at the earliest.

Importantly, the PM was clear in his mind that the matter should not be referred to the Special Investigation Team on black money.

The PM felt that the matter should be probed by a small group of domain experts as the handing over the case to the SIT would mean a delay as the team will take its own time to arrive at conclusions.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had on April 4 had set up a committee to probe the Panama Papers. Comprising of members from different agencies – the Financial Intelligence Unit, the Foreign Tax and Tax Research division and the investigative unit of the CBDT, and the RBI, the multi-agency group held its first meeting on April 7.