What had NDA done to bring back black money asks Congress

The Congress on Saturday hit back at the BJP for claiming that it would bring back in 100 days crores of rupees hidden by Indian nationals in secret Swiss accounts and tax havens, asking what the previous NDA regime had done to bring back black money from abroad.

"What did the NDA precisely do to unearth and bring back money stashed by Indian nationals outside the country when they were in power?" external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee demanded.

He told reporters here that the erstwhile government had enacted a "toothless" Prevention of Money Laundering Act in 2002 which the UPA government had amended twice in 2004 and 2009.

According to the assessment of the BJP, he said, the black money deposited in foreign banks varied between USD 500 billion to 1400 billion.

"But is there any specific figure available with anybody about the quantum of black money deposited abroad? This is my question. And, so far as the government is concerned, it is still investigating."

Mukherjee said the Central government's attention has been drawn to a media report on the annual statement of the Swiss Bank Association for 2006, 2007 and 2008 which put the amount deposited in Swiss banks by Indian nationals at between USD 1456 billion and 1891 billion.

The issue was raised when the amendment to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act was discussed in Parliament on February 24, 2009, Mukherjee said.

"But it was pointed out that this figure was not confirmed by Swiss authorities. The websites of Swiss Banks available to us did not mention any such report or figure," he said.

India had instructed its ambassador to Switzerland to ascertain the position with the Swiss authorities, he said.

Mukherjee said that the law enacted during the NDA regime was also not found satisfactory by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an international organisation helping governments to tackle economic challenges.

The government was now negotiating with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), he said.

The global fora had categorised countries into three groups on the basis of their following the OECD standard, Mukherjee said.

Those following the standard and wanted to implement it fell in the first category.

Those countries which had agreed to comply, but were yet to implement it were in the second group, while those countries which had said they would not follow it were in the third category.

However, following the G-20 conclave recently, the third category countries had agreed to follow the standard, Mukherjee said.

Stating that the government was doing whatever was needed in this direction, Mukherjee said, "If necessary, we will amend bilateral agreements like Double Tax Agreement and the Prevention, Promotion and Protection Agreement."

The external affairs minister pointed out that prime minister Manmohan Singh, in a statement at the G-20 summit on April 1, had called for stronger regulation and improved supervision while emphasising on sharing of information and bringing tax havens and non-cooperative jurisdictions under close scrutiny.

The G-20 Summit on April 2 incorporated the spirit of the prime minister's statement in its declaration in which the leaders agreed to take action against non-cooperative jurisdictions including tax havens, he said.