NDA’s impetus on black money yielding results
It may seem like a happy coincidence that within weeks of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA Government's move to establish a Special Investigation Team to lay hands on illegal money that Indians have stashed in offshore banks, comes the news that the Government of Switzerland has decided to share with New Delhi details of Indians suspected to have kept unaccounted money in banks across that country. But there is more to it than mere coincidence. The Swiss authorities appear to have been impressed by the strident note that the Narendra Modi regime has struck on the issue, and the formation of the SIT — one of the first decisions the new Government took after assuming charge — gave a clear indication that the Centre was absolutely committed to the task of getting back black money kept by Indians in foreign banks. Switzerland is among the favoured tax havens for not just the efficiency of its banking system but also the secrecy that its banking clients enjoy. It would require enormous paperwork and convincing for bank authorities there on the issue of illegality to spill the beans on their customers. But now that the Swiss authorities have begun to prepare a detailed list of Indians whose accounts could have unaccounted money and have ‘promised’ to share it with India, the SIT will have access to crucial; material that will be critical to its work. The SIT has already met once and the members involved have got cracking, from all accounts. Access to the new information which Switzerland provides can act as the key to more secret vaults across the globe. It is possible that other banks spread across more tax havens that had in the past been less than cooperative to Indian requests to share details of black money deposited by Indians in accounts held there, will open up too. They also must scrutinise, like the Swiss did, of the movement of money by Indians in their accounts. If they find something suspicious, they must act without delay. The Swiss did just that when they realised that there had been a sudden and inexplicable spurt in Indian deposits when compared to deposits by people of other nationalities. The rise of Indian exposure to Swiss banks to Rs 14,000 crore by the end of 2013 and the decline during that period in deposits by other nationalities that stood at over Rs 90 lakh crore presented a clear case of something being fishy.
The NDA Government must step clear of the confused and often non-cooperative approach that the Congress-led UPA regime had demonstrated on the issue. The UPA showed scant concern over the matter and acted after it received a rap from the Supreme Court. It submitted to the court a list of 26 individuals who held accounts allegedly of black money in Germany's lichtenstein Bank. That was the last one heard from the Manmohan Singh Government on the matter. The UPA regime had been clearly uncomfortable over being under the scanner on the issue. The White Paper it had presented to Parliament was a document to mislead on the grave crime. The then Government had dragged its feet for almost three years after the apex court asked it to constitute an SIT. On the eve of its departure after the electoral defeat, it had, again strangely, approached the court seeking a modification of the latter's directive.