Not surprised by SC directive on black money, says Subramanian Swamy

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday said that he was not surprised by the directive by the Supreme Court, asking the government to disclose all the names of the black money account holders, adding that these cases do not fall under any statute of confidentiality.

"I am not surprised because I had warned the government that these names have to be made public. Don't quote the Direct Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) between India and Germany and India and France, because that is applicable to Indians who reside in those countries who either pay taxes in India or do not pay adequate taxes," Swamy told ANI.

"We are not talking about this type of black money and we are not talking about tax avoidance as a primary problem. We are talking about getting bribes in defence deals, the 2G spectrum scam, via drug trafficking and so on. Perhaps we should call this black money as 'red money'," he added.

Swamy further said that a resolution passed by the United Nations requires all member nations to cooperate in cases of black money. "This money comes under no agreement. On the contrary, the United Nations resolution on corruption of 2005 requires that all countries cooperate in this. Therefore France and Germany did India a service by sending these names. Further, there were no conditions laid when this list was sent. Thus this is a wrong presentation of facts and naturally the Supreme Court will be upset," said Swamy.

Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court asked the Union Government to disclose all the names of the people who have stashed their black money in accounts abroad. The government has till 10.30 am on Wednesday to comply.

On Monday, the government in an affidavit to the Supreme Court had named three people who had accounts in Swiss banks with black money - Pradip Burman, former executive chairman of Dabur; Pankaj Chimanlal Lodhiya, a Rajkot-based bullion trader and Radha S. Timblo, a Goa-based miner and owner of Timblo Pvt Ltd.

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.