Black money: 250 admit to foreign accounts, more names coming

New Delhi Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Wednesday said the identities of 427 overseas account holders have been established and 250 of them had conceded to holding these accounts He refuted opposition charges that the government was doing little to get back the illicit money stashed away by Indians abroadReplying to the debate on black money in the Rajya Sabha Jaitley said the government wanted to follow the correct procedure in disclosing namesThe issue is not to disclose or not but how and when to disclose the names he saidHe said this was because since the evidence of black money stashed away by Indians was outside the Indian shores the government must get evidence first from other countries using the various treaties that New Delhi entered into with themThe names will become public Jaitley assured when some opposition members demanded that the government reveal the identities of the perpetrators right away since they were already being talked about in the mediaDisclosure of names without following the proper procedures would only benefit the account holders he addedThe opposition led by the Congress sought to tear into the government on the issue and asked it to apologise for making false promise of bringing black money back from foreign banks during discussion in both houses of parliament The discussion could not be completed in the Lok SabhaIn the Rajya Sabha Congress leader Anand Sharma said the BJP had misled the country by making tall promisesHe hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying In all his prepoll rallies the prime minister said Rs85 lakh crore was in banks abroad Now the prime minister says he does not know about itThe Congress attack in the Lok Sabha was led by Mallikarjun KhargeSome opposition parties staged a walkout in the Rajya Sabha before Jaitley could conclude his replyJaitley said the government was actively engaging with other countries to widen its scope of operations against black moneyHe said that as things stood now the Swiss authorities have been persuaded to at least establish the veracity of any evidence that the Indian government and the special team managed to procure from various sources regarding these accountsIn the next stage now well start a dialogue for automatic exchange of information With countries all over the world were going to have automatic exchange of tax information he saidThe finance minister said that of the 627 names of Indians holding bank accounts overseas that were furnished to the Supreme Court in a sealed envelope 427 had been identifiedOut of that he added 250 had admitted to such accountsHe said the first act of the Modi government was to constitute a Special Investigation Team to probe the black money issue and that the panel already had these namesJaitley also reiterated what was told to the apex court by the governmentAll the 627 accounts in the list are at an HSBC Bank branch in Geneva and the details were secured from the French governmentThe data was actually stolen by a bank employee as a result of which the Swiss authorities had declined help in any mannerAs regards HSBC the bank said that if the Indian authorities get a noobjection certificate from the account holders it could then share the relevant detailsSome 5060 account holders have given their consent the apex court had been toldWe are very much on it The wait is not long Jaitley saidWe were hitting a blind wall as to what to do with these information We are very sincere in our efforts to identify the accounts he addedJaitley said India was going to be in the lead in the fight against black money as deliberated upon recently in the G20 Summit in AustraliaIndia has no official estimates of illegal money stashed away overseas but the unofficial ones range from 466 billion to 14 trillionBJP member Anurag Thakur used the debate on black money in the Lok Sabha to target the Trinamool Congress over the Saradha scam