The government reconstituted a Multi-Agency Groupto investigate cases relating to the ‘Paradise Papers’ data disclosure.
- The group is led by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chairman Sushil Chandra.
- Representatives from CBDT, Enforcement Directorate, Reserve Bank of India and the Financial Intelligence Unit will be the members of the committee.
About Paradise Papers
- The Paradise Papers is a set of 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment that was leaked to a German newspaper.
- The papers were released on 5 November 2017 into the public domain.
- The documents originate from the offshore law firm Appleby, the corporate services providers Estera and Asiaciti Trust, and business registries in 19 tax jurisdictions.
- They contain the names of more than 120,000 people and companies.
- Queen Elizabeth II, the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, and the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross are named in the papers.
- According to the Boston Consulting Group, the amount of money involved is around $10 trillion.
- India ranks 19th out of the 180 countries represented in the data in terms of the number of names.
- There are 714 Indians in the tally, including the names of several political leaders.
- Former Minister of Corporate Affairs Sachin Pilot, former Chief Minister of Rajasthan Ashok Gehlot, the Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha, the son of former Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Veerappa Moily Rajya Sabha MP Ravindra Kishore Sinha, Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and Andhra Pradesh Opposition Leader Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy are mentioned in the papers.
- Among the companies listed in the papers are Apollo Tyres, the Essel Group, D S Construction, Emaar MGF, GMR Group, Havells, Hinduja Group, the Hiranandani Group, Jindal Steel, the Sun Group and Videocon.
