Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated in a parliamentry debate on Tuesday, December 17, that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had given victims and legitimate claimants access to assets valued at Rs 22,280 crore.
During the discussion of the first set of Supplementary Demands for Grants in the Lok Sabha, Sitharaman gave an overview of the ED's initiatives to retrieve ill-gotten wealth and return it to defrauded investors and public sector banks.
Major recoveries by ED (enforcement directorate)
In one of the most significant cases, the ED retrieved properties from fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya valued at Rs 14,131.6 crore, which were then turned over to public sector banks.
In the Nirav Modi case, properties valued at Rs 1,052.58 crore were also given back to both public and private banks.
Properties worth Rs 2,565.90 crore that the ED attached in the Mehul Choksi case are now scheduled for auction. In addition, legitimate investors were given back assets from the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) scam valued at Rs 17.47 crore.
The Enforcement Directorate (@dir_ed) has successfully Restored properties worth around Rs 22,280 crores, and I am only talking about the major cases.
— Nirmala Sitharaman Office (@nsitharamanoffc) December 17, 2024
I would like to list the number of cases: -
Vijay Mallya - Rs 14,131.6 crores, the complete amount of the attached property… pic.twitter.com/fJRPEyPOnI
FM emphasised the effectiveness of 'Black Money Act'
The Finance Minister also emphasized how well the 2015 Black Money Act has worked to reduce unreported foreign assets. Between 2021–2022 and 2024–2025, the number of taxpayers declaring foreign assets increased dramatically from 60,467 to over 2 lakh.
As of June 2024, 163 prosecutions had been started and 697 cases under the Black Money Act had demands totaling Rs 17,520 crore from the government.
Government's multi agency group
In 582 cases, investigations into international leaks, such as the Panama Papers and Pandora Papers, have uncovered undisclosed income totaling Rs 33,393 crore.
The government has formed a Multi-Agency Group (MAG) for coordinated action against unaccounted foreign assets in order to speed up these efforts. 'We are after them,' Sitharaman reaffirmed. We will see to it that funds that are due to banks and investors are reimbursed.