Black money row: Dabur Group dubs Govt. move to name its former executive as 'unfortunate'

The Dabur Group has termed it as 'extremely unfortunate' that the Narendra Modi-led government has named one of its former executives, Pradip Burman, in the list of people having money in safe havens abroad to the Supreme Court, saying every person having a foreign bank account is being painted with the same brush.

"Account was opened when he (Pradip Burman) was an NRI, and was legally allowed to open this account. Followed all laws and complete details regarding the account have been voluntarily filed with the IT Dept and appropriate taxes paid," said the statement issued by the Dabur Group.

"Unfortunate that every person having a foreign bank account is being painted with the same brush," the statement added.

The Centre today revealed the names of three people having black money stashed abroad in its affidavit to the apex court.

Pradip Burman, former Director of Dabur group, Pankaj Chimanlal Lodhiya, a Rajkot based bullion trader and Radha S Timbola, a Goa based miner, reportedly feature in the much awaited list.

The three business persons have been charged under various sections of the Income Tax Act and Money Laundering Act.

The ruling BJP had raised the issue of black money during the campaigning for the 2014 Lok Sabha and repeatedly questioned the stand of the former Congress-led UPA regime.

The government is building pressure particularly on Switzerland, seeking details of Indians who have parked unaccounted for money in the Alpine country's highly secretive banks. It has quickly implemented a Supreme Court directive to set up a high-powered special investigation team, headed by retired judge MB Shah, to look into the issue.

While there are no official estimates, Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington-based think-tank, has estimated that Indians had parked USD 462 billion in overseas tax havens between 1948 and 2008.

Earlier, the government had told the apex court that it could not disclose the names of those who have deposited money in banks abroad as it this would jeopardise tax agreements with nations providing those names to India.

There were murmurs of protest within the ruling BJP that not disclosing names would hurt the party's image after it had made bringing back black money, a key issue in a general election that it won by a landslide. The Centre's stand also drew a strong response from the Congress, which accused it of hypocrisy.

Turning the tables on the Congress, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had recently said the disclosing of names of people holding black money accounts will embarrass the opposition party.