Reiterating the Government’s commitment to retrieve black money from foreign banks, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday told the lok Sabha that the Government was going in the right direction and following up with several countries. Not satisfied with his reply to the debate on this use, the Congress and the TMC staged walkout accusing the Government of “fooling people” and demanding apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
When the debate resumed in lok Sabha on Thursday, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu said BJP never promised to bring back the Black Money within 100 days and cited the party’s manifesto. But Naidu was cornered by the Opposition, which cited Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s election speeches promising to bring back black money in 100 days.
Referring to the steps taken to unearth black money, Jaitley said Government has identified 427 account holders associated with HSBC list and efforts are on to complete tax assessment by March 31, 2015. He also said prosecution has already been launched in several cases and and names would become public at the right time.
“When media comes to know it will note that there are influential people in the list (of foreign account holders),”Before staging walkout, Congress party leader Mallikarjuna Kharge reiterated that the PM owes an apology to Parliament for “misleading” the country. “All BJP leaders, its President and PM candidate all said Rs15 lakh would be given to citizens by retrieving black money from abroad. Jaitleyji, except you all in BJP said,” said Kharge.
Asserting that the Government would have to move carefully, Finance Minsiter said that those pushing for immediate disclosure of names would be helping black money account holders as they will get alerted. “Some account holders have already withdrawn money (from offshore illegal accounts)... We necessarily do not need to show bravado and adventurism,” he said. He was responding to Samajwadi party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav who wanted to know if there was still money in those accounts. The Finance Minister said as many as 18 persons withdrew from lichenstein Bank as and when the reports came out in media.
Asserting that government will not rest till the last account is disclosed, he said, “We are on right legal path... They (Black money holders) will be punished and forced to bring money back in the country.” Jaitley said if the Government falters and makes a hasty disclosure, “we will not get any evidence from foreign countries and the account holder will have the last laugh.”