Attorney General of India Mukul Rohtagi on Tuesday said that the government has no hesitation in disclosing the names of the people who have stashed their money abroad, adding that the government will provide the list in a sealed cover to the Supreme Court by 10.30 am on Wednesday.
"We have no hesitation in disclosing the entire list to the Supreme Court. We have already disclosed the entire list which we received from France, commonly known as the HSBC Swiss accounts, to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Supreme Court," Rohtagi told ANI.
"There is no reluctance to share the list with the Supreme Court. The government is bound to comply with the orders given by the Supreme Court and we have no reason to hold back any name. The latest status of this investigation will also be placed in the sealed cover before the Supreme Court at 10.30 am tomorrow," he added.
Rohtagi further said that the reason why the names had not been disclosed was due to the clause of confidentiality in the treaties with various nations.
"I was trying to explain to the court that we have a clause of confidentiality in all treaties, including the one we need to enter into with the United States in December this year, which will give us on an automatic route basis entire information of Indian residents who have accounts there and they will get of American residents who live here," Rohtagi said.
"Therefore we need to give a sovereign assurance of confidentiality that the names will not be disclosed to the public except to the tax court. This means, after verification if we find that the account is illegitimate and it has black money, then we launch prosecution and thereupon the name is immediately disclosed because when you launch a court case, the name becomes public," he added.
Rohtagi also said that the court could choose to investigate the names in whichever way it sought fit.
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"We will gladly give the names to the Supreme Court. If the apex court wants to probe the names in any other manner, apart from income tax, it will decide," he said.
On Monday, the government in an affidavit to the SC 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.