The Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, has reiterated the commitment of Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to detect the names of black money holders, prosecuting the guilty and making them public.
“We are not going to be pushed into an act of adventurism where we violate the treaties and then plead that we are no longer able to get the cooperation of reciprocating states. Such an approach may actually help the account holders. Adventurism will be short-sighted. A mature approach will take us to the root of the matter,” Jaitley said in a long message posted on a social networking site.
This message has come a day after severe criticism on Government’s response filed in the apex court on Friday stating that it cannot disclose the names of people having black money stashed abroad.
Jaitley highlighted the steps taken by the present Government to fight the menace with black money.
He said that the NDA Government took over in the last week of May. For three years, the UPA Government has been refusing to appoint a special investigation team (SIT) directed by the Supreme Court. At the first very Cabinet Meeting, Modi Cabinet decided to appoint a SIT. The SIT has been effectively functioning since then, he said.
Secondly, the revenue authorities managed to get major breakthroughs with Switzerland Government with regard to investigation into black money stacked in Swiss banks.
Indian delegation led by the Revenue Secretary, Shaktikanta Das, and Swiss delegation had signed a joint statement. It was agreed that with regard to the list of account holders in HSBC available with India, where the Indian tax authorities have conducted independent investigations, the Swiss would provide India with the country furnishing upon details of adequate evidence in this regard.
It was also said that whenever India has some information/documentary evidence, the Swiss would confirm the authenticity or otherwise of that evidence and this would be done in a time-bound manner. Similarly, discussions would now start on a bilateral agreement on automatic exchange of information in the banking system. If this bilateral arrangement is arrived at, it will be an important milestone in detection of black money held by Indians in the Swiss banks.
Referring to black money case, he said that the apex court has directed the Government of India to furnish the names to the petitioner, which has been given by Germany. These names were given to the petitioner who made them public. The Germans strongly objected to this as a violation of the Double Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) which was entered between the Government of India and Germany on June 19, 1995.
“The present NDA Government has unfortunately inherited the legacy of that DTAA. We may have negotiated a better deal. If we scrap the treaty, we get no further information. The covenant to the treaty is that the names of the account holders and information received there under will only be disclosed when charges are filed in court. They obviously cannot be utilised for political propaganda or for political mileage,“ he said.
According to Jaitley, all that the Government has requested the Supreme Court is to clarify that it has not prohibited the Government of India to enter into treaties with countries wherein a commitment may be made by the Government to maintain confidentiality of information received as per international standards.
If such a commitment to maintain the confidentiality is not given, the Government will not receive any information about Indians hiding their money in other countries, including offshore financial centres and tax heavens. “Thus the clarification sought from the Supreme Court is only to facilitate collection of information about illegal money stashed abroad,” he said.