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.

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.

US President-Elect Donald Trump has issued a fresh warning to India saying that if it taxes American products, the US will do the same. Trump’s words came during his interaction with journalists at his Mar-a-Lago resort Since his first term, Trump has been hawkish about taxing foreign products but has not fully implemented what he has said. However, Trump’s warnings are taken seriously as markets move according to what a US president says.

“If they tax us, we tax them the same amount,” Trump told reporters.

Other than about India, Trump has been vocal about taxes imposed on American products by Brazil, Mexico and China.

“The word reciprocal is important because if somebody charges us – India, we don’t have to talk about our own – if India charges us 100 per cent, do we charge them nothing for the same? You know, they send in a bicycle, and we send them a bicycle. They charge us 100 and 200. India charges a lot,” said Trump.

“India charges a lot. Brazil charges a lot. If they want to charge us, that’s fine, but we’re going to charge them the same thing,” he added.

The outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden has sounded upbeat about India-US ties. On Tuesday, Biden administration said that it was leaving India-US relations “in a very strong place”

“We continue to be very ambitious about the US-India relationship. We’ve had very high-level engagement over the course of the last several months with the QUAD summit in Delaware, and we are anticipating a high-level engagement in the last few weeks of the Biden administration,” said US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell on Tuesday.

Markets regulator SEBI has suggested the establishment of a Mutual Fund Investment Tracing and Retrieval Assistant (MITR) in an effort to increase transparency and assist investors in recovering their unclaimed mutual fund investments.

To facilitate the management and transfer of financial assets in the event of a death, market regulator Sebi has suggested utilising DigiLocker, a government digital storage system. Financial documents, such as statements for mutual funds and demat accounts (which hold stocks), are supposed to be safely kept in DigiLocker.

Easy of transfer to designated succesor

DigiLocker will automatically update the deceased person’s account and alert the designated successor (such as a family member) to handle the assets.

The nominee will be able to work with the appropriate agencies to transfer the assets and access the deceased’s financial information in this way. Sebi’s mission is to make sure that assets are distributed to the appropriate heirs and to stop unclaimed assets (such as stocks or funds) from being left behind.

Need of the tracking system

Many investors eventually lose sight of their mutual fund investments, particularly those made in physical form with scant KYC information. Due to out-of-date information, such as a missing PAN, invalid addresses, or no email address, some investments are still inactive.

These folios are frequently overlooked because of this disconnect, which keeps them from showing up in consolidated account statements.

Unless the investor, nominee, or legal heir contacts the appropriate Asset Management Company (AMC) for redemption or transfer, investments in open-ended growth schemes may remain dormant indefinitely.

Such folios are susceptible to fraudulent activities because of the inactivity that may result from investors losing track of their investments or even the death of the account holder.

Functionality of retrievel mechanism

In order to solve this issue, SEBI has recommended that the MITR platform be developed and hosted by two Qualified Registrar and Transfer Agents (QRTAs): ComputerAge Management Services Ltd. (CAMS) and KFin Technologies Ltd.

Through links on important websites like MF Central, specific AMCs, AMFI (Association of Mutual Funds in India), and SEBI itself, the service would function as an industry-level searchable database.