HSBC leaked list: 1,195 Indians including country's richest Mukesh Ambani have Swiss accounts

Secret documents leaked from HSBC's Swiss private bank revealed the names of 1,195 Indians, who hold accounts with the bank that had a combined balance of about $4.1bn for the year 2006-2007.

In comparison, a list based on the documents given by French authorities to the Indian government earlier in 2011 had 628 names.

India is ranked No. 16 among the countries with the largest dollar amounts in the leaked Swiss files.

The list revealed by the Indian newspaper, The Indian Express, includes the name of prominent Indian businessman such as the country's richest Mukesh Ambani, his brother Anil Ambani, Anand Chand Burman, Rajan Nanda, Yashovardhan Birla and Chandru Lachhmandas Raheja.

According to the leaked data, Mukesh Ambani opened two HSBC accounts in 2001 with average joint balance of $26.6m (£17.5m, €23.5m) in 2006/2007. Another account was opened in 2007 in the name of his company, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), with a balance of $103.8m.

"Neither RIL nor Mr Mukesh Ambani have or had any illegitimate bank accounts anywhere in the world," a spokesperson from the company was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.

The list also includes names of some politicians and affluent Non-Resident Indians (NRIs).

The Indian Express partnered in a three-month-long global project with the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and the Paris-based Le Monde newspaper to get the names.

An international collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, the French daily Le Monde, BBC Panorama and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, citing leaked secret bank account files, revealed that HSBC's Swiss arm helped wealthy customers from 200 countries dodge taxes and hide millions of dollars worth of assets.

The news outlets obtained the data from Herve Falciani, a former IT employee of HSBC's Swiss private bank, who was charged in Switzerland with industrial espionage and breaching the country's secrecy laws.

India's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the list includes new names, and the country will expand its probe into the black money issue.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier pledged to bring back large amount of black money kept abroad during his election campaign in 2014.