Government must look beyond treaties
According to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, information on black money stashed in tax havens abroad cannot be made public, as that will entail violations of the government’s treaty obligations. It is in this context that the Supreme Court comments of Wednesday are so welcome. “One trillion dollars is one estimate of the black money quantum. It is a huge amount of money, almost plunder of the nation and of far-reaching consequences. Yet, the government has summarized the efforts as recovery of tax evaded on money kept in foreign banks. This is the worrying point,” said a bench of Justices B Sudershan Reddy and SS Nijjar. The apex court’s observation came in the wake of the hearing of a petition filed by eminent jurist Ram Jethmalani, seeking disclosure of black money stashed in foreign banks and the action taken by the government for getting that money back.
So will the Manmohan Singh government, already embroiled in serious corruption charges and struggling to keep itself untainted, act? Or, is the government even concerned about the gravity of the situation? As the apex court has suggested indirectly, the government needs to go beyond the “niceties of this treaty or that treaty” in order to deter the “plunder” of the nation.
The Sentinel, January 21