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MCA zeroes in on 225,000 more suspected shell companies P P Chaudhary said the ministry had received a report from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) on systemic issues that led to the PNB fraud The government is intensifying its drive against shell companies. After taking action against 226,000 shell companies last year, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has now zeroed in on another 225,000 suspected shell companies. The ministry has sent notices to these companies, asking whether they had filed statutory financial returns. Minister of State for Corporate Affairs P P Chaudhary told Business Standard that companies had been given a chance to respond to the notices. On the Rs 139-billion Punjab National Bank fraud, Chaudhary said the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) was probing 107 companies and seven limited liability partnerships (LLPs) belonging to Nirav Modi’s Firestar Diamond Group and Mehul Choksi’s Gitanjali group. Though the minister refuse...

  Hawkish RBI minutes rattle currency, gilts; rupee plunges to 13-month low The market was nervous after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor Viral Acharya gave hints of a policy tightening The jubilation over low first-half borrowing was short-lived for the bond market. The 10-year bond yield hit 7.79 per cent in Friday morning trade, a level last seen in February, threatening to undo the entire gains earned since the announcement of light first-half borrowing. Bond yields, however, recovered sharply to close at 7.66 per cent, marginally higher than its previous close of 7.63 per cent. The recovery was possible because of heightened buying by nationalised banks, likely as an intervention measure. It was also aided by US President Donald Trump expressing his displeasure at high oil prices, according to bond dealers. The rupee also fell to a 13-month low of 66.11 a dollar from its previous close of 65.66 a dollar. It came under pressure as foreign investors liquidat...

PFRDA makes bank a/c, mobile number mandatory for NPS subscribers Pension fund regulator PFRDA has made bank account details and mobile number mandatory for subscribers of national pension scheme (NPS), the finance ministry said today. Further, in compliance with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) guidelines, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has also made Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and Central Registry of Securitization Asset Reconstruction and Security Interest (CERSAI) mandatory for new and existing subscribers. PFRDA takes various initiatives from time to time in order to simplify and improve the operational issues in National Pension System (NPS), like new functionality development under NPS architecture, simplification of account opening, withdrawal and grievance management. "It has been decided by the authority to make bank account details and mobile number mandatory to provide ease of operation for the benefit ...

  Delink provisional credit from tax payment, say stakeholders Earlier, the GoM, headed by Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi, had zeroed on two models of simplification In the effort to evolve a consensus over provisional input tax credit for the goods and services tax (GST), stakeholders have asked the group of ministers (GoM) on the subject to de-link this from payment. The panel will make a draft of all suggestions and give it to the GST Council, for the ultimate purpose of having a simpler, single form. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has suggested provisional credit be given on the basis of acceptance of invoices by buyers, not linked to payment by suppliers. Saloni Roy, senior director at consultants Deloitte India, said: "The worry in pursuing the matching concept is, where a purchaser has paid his supplier and the supplier has either not reported his supply or deposited tax, the purchaser is penalised with denial of credit.” Prakash Maheshwari, m...

  Demonetisation led to highest fake currency, suspicious transactions  The country's banks received an all-time high amount of fake currency and also detected an over 480 per cent jump in suspicious transactions post demonetisation, a first-ever report on dubious deposits made in the wake of the 2016 notes ban has revealed. The banks, including those in the private, public and cooperative sectors, and other financial institutions collectively generated 400 per cent more suspicious transaction reports (STRs) at over 4.73 lakh such dossiers during 2016-17, the report said. \ The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), that analyses suspicious financial transactions pertaining to money laundering and terror financing as part of the Union Finance Ministry establishment, reported that counterfeit currency transactions in the banking and other economic channels witnessed an increase by over 3.22 lakh instances during 2016-17 as compared to the last year.  This, the report a...

  Petro products need to be brought under GST Petroleum and Naural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan today stressed on bringing petroleum products under the GST to provide relief to common people from spurt in fuel prices following surging global crude oil rates. Both the central and state governments have started making up their mind in this regard, he said. Petroleum products are out of GST ambit which was rolled out in July last year. "The prices of petroleum products are all time high in past four years in international market due to some disturbances in Syria and US's threats to impose fresh sanctions on Iran," Pradhan told reporters here. "Government of India is concerned over it...petroleum products have to be brought under the purview of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) but since this is the first year of the implementation of GST, so states are concerned and hesitant about their income," the minister said while responding to a query in this rega...

Power regulatory bodies must have a judicial member: SC  The Supreme Court ordered that one of the members of electricity regulatory commissions should be a person of judicial background, quashing orders of various high courts that the chairperson of such bodies in states should be a high court judge. The top court also said the judicial member should be part of the quorum in adjudicatory matters.  The union government has yet to ascertain whether last week’s verdict will apply to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission as well, sources said.  “Section 84(2) of the said (Electricity) Act is only an enabling provision to appoint a high court judge as a chairperson of the state commission of the said Act and it is not mandatory to do so,” the verdict said.  “It is mandatory that there should be a person of law as a member of the commission, which requires a person, who is, or has been, holding a judicial office or is a person possessing professional qua...

RBI cutting note order may have led to crisis The shortage in fresh ink and supplies, critical to boosting supply of banknotes amid reports of a cash crunch in parts of the country, is being attributed to a decision by the central bank to cut orders to currency presses in June 2017. The decision prompted the presses to stop fresh orders for raw materials, two officials at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on condition of anonymity. The contracts to supply ink and security threads ended in March, said the officials, bringing the printing presses to a near-halt at a time supply isn’t keeping pace with the sudden spurt in demand. Procuring fresh raw materials could take some more time, the people cited above said, extending the current cash shortage, estimated by former RBI deputy governor R. Gandhi at nearly Rs5 trillion. Based on pre-demonetization trends, currency in circulation should have been close to Rs23 trillion now, compared with Rs18 trillion as on 6 April, Gandhi ...

RBI’s Acharya suggests shift in monetary policy stance, show minutes One member of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) rate-setting panel suggested starting the process of shifting the monetary policy stance from neutral to “withdrawal of accommodation”, increasing the odds of a rate hike this year. Noting the upside risks to inflation, Viral Acharya, RBI deputy governor, said he is likely to shift decisively to vote for a beginning of “withdrawal of accommodation” at the next Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in June. “Reinforcement of inflationtargeting credibility that such a shift would signal is crucial in my view for prudent macroeconomic management, on both the domestic and external sector fronts,” he said According to Gaurav Kapur, chief economist at IndusInd Bank, a combination of risk factors, both on the demand and supply side, should play out for changing the monetary policy stance to restrictive from neutral. “Such a shift is unlikely in June because there ...

I-T department seizes Rs4 crore in drive against cash hoarders   New Delhi: In a drive against cash hoarders, the income tax (I-T) department has seized currency worth Rs4 crore from people in states, including Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, which have reported cash shortages. The drive is part of the tax department’s efforts to track down currency hoarders suspected of gaming the formal banking system to mobilize currency for making unaccounted payments. The search operations were conducted over the last few days, said a government official who did not wish to be identified. The Mint, New Delhi, 20th April 2018 ---------------

Govt to continue talks with RBI on easing non-performing asset norms Officials said the Prime Minister's Office and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had been apprised of the matter A day after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor N S Vishwanathan ruled out easing new norms for non-performing asset (NPA) resolution, the government doubled down on its stance that a strict application of these norms could send too many cases to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and clog the insolvency pipeline. Business Standard has learnt from senior government sources that the finance ministry will initiate a fresh round of communication with the RBI once Governor Urjit Patel returns to India. Patel, along with Deputy Governor Viral Acharya, is in Washington, DC for the World Bank-International Monetary Fund Spring meeting, which is slated to end on April 22. Officials also said the Prime Minister’s Office and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had been apprised of the matter. A so...