Bring back Rs 25 lakh crore black money from abroad: Oppn

Moving an adjournment motion on the issue, the first in the current Lok Sabha, BJP veteran L K Advani also wanted a White Paper on the magnitude of the black money menace and steps taken by the government to tackle it.

"Tell the world that we are willing to place all the cards on the table. We have nothing to hide," Advani told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee who were present in the House.

"Reveal the names you have. It will be a humiliation if we don't get to know them from our Prime Minister or our Finance Minister and come to know from the Wikileaks as (its owner) Julius Assange has said he has the names and would reveal them in 2012," Advani said.

The Chairman of the BJP Parliamentary Party said his party agreed with the estimate of an international think-tank -- Global Financial Integrity -- that Rs 25 lakh crore have been illegally stashed away abroad by Indians.

The adjournment motion was on the situation arising out of money deposited illegally in foreign banks and action being taken against the guilty persons. Following an agreement between the government and the BJP, the motion did not speak of "government failure".

The BJP leader, however, insisted that the admission of the motion was itself reflective of government's failure on the issue "no matter even if the wording of the motion has undergone a change. Adjournment motion is a failure of the government and your (Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar) acceptance only testifies my view that it the government's failure".

Maintaining that blackmoney stashed abroad was far more than the Rs 1.76 lakh crore involved in the biggest scam (2G spectrum allocation) of independent India, Advani alleged that blackmoney generation had grown manifold since the country undertook liberalisation in 1991 when Singh was the Finance Minister.

He asked why the government was not making public the "16 to 18 names" of people who had kept unaccounted money in banks in Liechtenstein it had received from foreign governments. "Why protect them?"

Asserting that the Swiss government was willing to reveal such names to countries which wanted to know them, he wanted to know why the government was dragging its feet on the matter.

He said France had 600-700 names of Indians who had stashed ill-gotten wealth abroad. "Do not protect them. If any name belongs to us, please reveal that too." The senior BJP leader also took the government to task for delaying the ratification of a 2003 UN Convention on corruption and dirty money by eight years. "Government has not been proactive in this matter, even the Supreme Court has pointed this out."

Asking the government to declare December 9 as 'Anti- Corruption Day', he said all BJP MPs had given voluntary declarations to the Rajya Sabha Chairman and the Lok Sabha Speaker declaring that they had no illegal foreign accounts.

Advani asked the government to enact a law to make it mandatory for all candidates, MPs and MLAs to state that they did not have any illegal money stashed away in foreign banks.

"It can be part of the Election Commission's declaration for candidates regarding their assets", Advani said, adding that this would go a long way in correcting the common public perception that politicians were generally corrupt. "Such a view is wrong, but that it exists, is a fact."

When Minister Farooq Abdullah briefly intervened to ask why he was silent on the 'hawala' issue, Advani said he had raised the matter of Hassan Ali, who was allegedly dealing in hawala and whose name figured in a petition filed by eminent jurist Ram Jethmalani on black money.

He also asked the Finance Minister to provide details regarding the case relating to Hassan Ali and his "connections". Making a strong case for bringing back the illegally stashed wealth abroad, Advani said if this amount was brought back, it could be invested to develop the six lakh villages of India by building roads, dispensaries, schools and supplying electricity.

Observing that questions could be asked why the erstwhile NDA government had not taken any action to bring back blackmoney, he said the issue came into focus only after the United Nations Security Council took up the issue in 2003.

He quoted a Supreme Court observation that black money was actually "theft, plunder and loot of national money" and that there was "an unholy nexus between law-makers, law-keepers and the law-breakers" if the State remained soft.

Earlier the prime cause of black money was tax evasion because the tax rates were very high which led to opening of foreign bank accounts to keep the ill-gotten money.

Countering the Opposition attack, Congress member Manish Tewari accused the former NDA government of diluting the provisions for curbing the scourge of blackmoney during its six-year tenure from 1998 to 2004.

He questioned BJP's intent on bringing back blackmoney stashed away abroad and said its campaign over the issue was merely aimed at deriving political mileage. Tewari, who spoke after Advani, said a "canard" was being spread as if the problem of blackmoney was the creation of UPA government. "Nothing can be farther from truth," he said, while attributing the scourge to "legacy" of bad tax laws.

An uproar was witnessed after he said the NDA government had withdrawn in July 2001 a circular under which the Income Tax department could ascertain the bonafide of those investing in India through Mauritius route.

The search and seizure power of the Income Tax department were also diluted, he charged. Yashwant Sinha, who was the Finance Minister then, termed Tewari's contention as "untrue" and accused the Congress member of twisting facts.

Sinha said the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement with Mauritius was signed in 1982 when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister and FDI and other investments from there were opened in 1993 when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the Finance Minister.

"We did nothing except continuing the policy," he said. About the circular, Sinha said the NDA's decision had been upheld by the Supreme Court.
To this, Tewari said the intention of the NDA government was suspect even if the Supreme Court upheld it.

Tewari asked what benefit NDA had got by diluting the provisions. Responding to this, Sinha said the NDA government had taken the decision on the circular because of "round-tripping" of Indian money which went abroad before coming back.

He, however, said each case had to be thoroughly examined by the Income Tax Department. Tewari also took a dig at BJP MPs giving a declaration that they have no illegal bank account abroad as he questioned why they had not given such a declaration with regard to accounts within the country.

He said the Congress and its government was keen on bringing back blackmoney which had acquired "dangerous proportions". Referring to Advani's mention about tax havens, he said there are 206 such countries where details of bank accounts are kept secret. "It is not as easy that you ask for information and they give information," the Congress member said.

At the same time, he admitted that there were exceptions to rules like in the case of money laundering and terrorism but the local laws of that country have to be satisfied about it.

With regard to Hassan Ali, a Pune-based stud farm owner who is accused of stashing illegal money abroad, Tewari gave some figures and said his assets had reportedly jumped from 969 million dollars to eight billion dollars from 1998 to 2004, when NDA was in power.

"What action did they (NDA) take? Was it not their responsibility to check him? Haathi ke daant khane ke aur hain or dikhane ke aur (looks are deceptive)," he said.