ED issued 239 show-cause notices in FY12 for FEMA violation: Government

NEW DELHI: The Directorate of Enforcement issued 239 show-cause notices for violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) involving Rs 11,791.40 crore in 2011-12, Parliament was informed on Thursday.

The directorate had issued 440 notices in 2010-11 and 463 in the previous financial year.

Giving this information during the Question Hour, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said Financial Intelligence Unit-India ( FIU-IND) has signed MoUs with FIUs of 19 countries till date for information sharing on money-laundering and terror financing.

"Information made available by foreign FIUs, which is either request based or spontaneous, is shared with the relevant domestic law enforcement and intelligence agencies," he said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Meanwhile, in a written reply to another question, Minister of State for Finance S S Palanimanickam said on request of the government and persistent follow up in June, 2011, France has provided details of Indians having bank accounts in one of the banks of Switzerland.

The information was provided under the provisions of Double Taxation Avoidance Convention between India and France.

"The information received is protected by the confidentiality clause of the said DTAC. The information can only be used for the tax purposes specified therein," Palanimanickam added.

In yet another reply, he said show-cause notices totalling Rs 313.72 crore have been sent to four companies engaged in gold jewellery export for violation of FEMA.

"Show-cause Notices for amount totalling Rs 313.72 crore for contravention of the relevant provisions of the FEMA, 1999, have been issued to four companies engaged in export of gold jewellery," Palanimanickam said.

He further said that the Enforcement Directorate has taken appropriate actions whenever instances of FEMA came to its notice.