Govt has no intention to protect anybody, names of all black money account holders will be given: Jaitley
NEW DELHI : Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday assured that names of all black money account holders with the government will be given to the Supreme Court.“The government has no intention to protect anybody in the probe,” Jaitley said.
The Finance Minister also said the government had no problem with any agency investigating the matter.“Have given list of names to SIT on black money on June 27,” Jaitley said. “The government wants that other nations also co-operate with us in the black money investigation,” he added.
Earlier today, the Supreme Court lashed out at the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre to disclose the entire list of black money account holders.
The apex court has ordered the government to reveal all the names by tomorrow. The government had yesterday revealed three names who held black money in foreign banks. SC has now ordered to give the entire list of the black money holders to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) and the court too.
Meanwhile, resuming its hearing in the black money case, the SC today pulled up government for seeking modification of its order on disclosing names of account holders in foreign banks.
New regime at Centre can’t ask modification of order when it was passed in an open court and accepted by the government, the apex court said.The apex court also ordered the government to just pass the information of account holders and that it would give order for further probe.
The direction came a day after the NDA government released eight names against whom it has started prosecution for allegedly stashing black money in foreign banks. Of the eight, three of them were said to have bank account in foreign banks.However, the government came under criticism both from within and the Opposition for being ‘selective’ in revealing the names.Following this, the Supreme Court also questioned the government as to why it was providing protective umbrella to foreign bank account holders.
We can’t leave the issue of bringing back black money to government. It will never happen during our time, the SC said in its judgement.Yesterday, the government named Pradip Burman (former director, Dabur India Limited), Pankaj Chimanlal Lodhiya (Rajkot-based bullion trader) and Radha S Timblo (Timblo Private Limited) in its affidavit filed in the Supreme Court.
The affidavit, filed days after the government came under attack from political rivals that it was chary of revealing names, said that these names have been received from French authorities and other countries.
