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Modi declares war on benami property

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The next step in the war against corruption would be a crackdown on benami property, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Sunday, as he again thanked people for enduring the “pain” caused by the scrapping of high-value currency.
Modi, who has come in for criticism for scrapping Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes that triggered a cash crunch, said if curbing corruption required “even tougher steps, those would be taken”.
“You are possibly aware of a law about benami property in our country which came into being in 1988, but neither were its rules ever framed, nor was it notified. It just lay dormant,” Modi said during the year’s last edition of Mann ki Baat, his monthly radio programme.
“We have retrieved it and turned it into an incisive law against benami property. In the coming days, this law will also become operational,” he said.
One of the biggest criticisms of demonetisation is that cash accounts for only 6% of the black money, the bulk of which is parked in real estate, bullion or is stashed abroad.
The benami transactions (prohibition) amendment act, which came into effect from November 1, provides for seven years in jail and a hefty fine for offenders. The punishment is similar to that awarded for heinous crimes such as dowry death and robbery or dacoity.
Ill-gotten properties can also be confiscated under the benami law.
Hindustan Times New Delhi,26th December 2016

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