Asserting that the Government has no difficulty in disclosing names of Indians having illicit money stashed abroad, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said that the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) signed by the Congress-led Government with foreign countries were a hurdle in making public details of the ill-gotten money.
After the Modi Government followed the Congress-led Government’s line in the Supreme Court on Friday and faced criticism from the Congress for misleading the nation in the past, Jaitley stressed that the Congress-led dispensation’s agreement made it obligatory on part of the incumbent Government to follow it.
He said according to the agreement the names of those having black money abroad could be disclosed or made public only when chargesheets were filed after completing the due process of investigations.The Finance Minister aggressively rejected the charge that the Modi Government was reluctant to part with information about the names of persons having black money abroad. Jaitley said Government’s stand is that black money has to be brought back to India and there was no question of “propaganda”.
“Is the present NDA Government led by Modi in any way reluctant to make some names publicIJ Certainly not. We have no difficulty in making names public. But, they can be made public only in accordance with due process of law.“And the due process of law has been constrained by DTAA which was entered into between India and Germany when the Congress was in power on June 19, 1995,” he told newspersons.
Jaitley said, as per the DTAA, “the names can only be made public once after investigation, there are disclosures made to court, that is when charges are filed. Till such time when the investigations are on, merely for reasons of propaganda they can’t be made public.”
On the question whether the latest agreement with Switzerland, with regard to sharing of information, would come into effect retrospectively or prospectively, Jaitley said, it would be “with regard to all information available in Switzerland... Information is not erased out”.
The Finance Minister said a delegation, led by Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das, visited Switzerland on October 15 and held discussions with Swiss authorities on issues relating to information exchange in tax matters.
He said the present Government made many breakthroughs by making Swiss authorities give names which it was refusing to provide on the grounds of “stolen documents”.
Jaitley said India obtained those details from “a Third Party” what Swiss authorities called “stolen data”. HSBC bank list cannot be denied to us and Swiss has to give us its confirmation when charges are filed.The Swiss Government no longer evaded giving details in a time-bound manner and agreed on bilateral discussion “on automatic disclosure of information”, the Minister said pointing to the impact of his Government’s efforts in pursuing the case.
Meanwhile, in a release, the Finance Ministry said discussions with Switzerland were substantive and useful.“Switzerland has indicated willingness to provide information in respect of cases where investigations have been carried out by our I-T Department independently from what Swiss Government considers as stolen data,” it said.
According to the Government, this development is very significant because there are a number of cases of account holders included in the HSBC list which were investigated by the I-T Department independent of the HSBC list obtained from the French Government.“Earlier, the Swiss Government had not agreed to provide any information on names which were included in the HSBC list on the ground that these were stolen data and have been obtained in breach of Swiss law,” the release said.
Besides, the Swiss Federal Tax Administration has agreed that their competent authority would assist India in obtaining confirmation of genuineness of bank documents on requests by the Indian side as well as details related to requests relating to non-banking information.
These developments “are very significant and would assist the Income Tax Department in its investigations. These developments are significant steps in the context of Government’s resolve to combat unaccounted money and tax evasion,” the release said.
SPIRITED DEFENCE