India gives court names of 627 with HSBC Swiss bank accounts in tax probe

India's government has handed over the names of more than 600 Indians with foreign HSBC bank accounts to the Supreme Court after public outrage over rampant tax evasion.

The court, which ordered the government to release the list, has given the names to an investigative team that the government set up in June to find illegal funds that tax dodgers have parked overseas.

The court set a deadline of March 31 next year for the team to complete its probe and begin legal action against tax evaders.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi says he wants to prosecute tax dodgers and bring money stashed in tax havens back into the country but little progress has been made since his landslide election victory earlier this year.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said 627 people were named on the list. They all had accounts with a Geneva branch of HSBC - information that was disclosed in 2011 by an employee of the bank and passed to India but not acted on by the previous government.

The Central Bureau of Investigation, India's equivalent of the FBI, said in 2012 that US$500 billion was held by Indians in tax havens overseas. Funds are stashed in such tax havens as Liechtenstein, British Virgin Islands, Switzerland, Mauritius and Jersey.