Two Lakh People Who Deposited Over Rs 20 Lakh In Scrapped Notes During DeMo Under I-T Scanner

At least two lakh people, who deposited over Rs 20 lakh into their accounts in scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and did not to respond to the income tax department's request for information, have been served tax notices by the government, the Times of India has reported.

"We have given them a lot of time, and we waited for them to come clean in the returns, but they have ignored our pleas leaving us with no option but to serve notice on them to file returns," the daily quoted a senior officer as saying.

Through data mining, the I-T department has been able to identify 18 lakh suspicious deposits of Rs 5 lakh or more during the 2016 demonetisation drive. At least 12 lakh of these have been verified through the income tax portal. The amount of suspect deposits, according to the report, is around Rs 2.9 lakh crore.

Around five lakh people did not respond to the department's request for verification.In the first phase of its probe, the government sent notices to 70,000 people who had deposited Rs 50 lakh or more in scrapped notes.