Black money row: Jethmalani wants SC to play more active role

Expressing dissatisfaction with the Narendra Modi-led government's move to name only three persons in the black money case as of now, veteran lawyer Ram Jethmalani on Monday hoped the Supreme Court will rise to the occasion and do the needful.

"I do not ordinarily comment on pending matters. In this case I am not the counsel, I am the party. It will be less than honest of me if I did not express to you about my real feelings about what has happened today. To put it in one line, it is a case of a mountain of labour producing a mouse," Jethmalani told the media here.

"The mouse has been produced by the Ministry of Finance and the Attorney General; must ask them what they have to say about the mouse," he said.

Describing the apex court as the saviour of what he called an 'unfortunate nation', Jethmalani added, "I have nothing further to say except this that ultimately protector of human rights of this unfortunate nation is the Supreme Court of India. I have great hope that the Supreme Court will rise to the occasion and do the needful."

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. They 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 NDA government is building pressure particularly on Switzerland, seeking details of Indians who have parked unaccounted 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 elections. The Centre's stand also drew a strong response from the Congress, which accused it of hypocrisy.

In response, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had recently said the disclosing of names of people holding black money accounts will embarrass the opposition party.