The Congress party would be embarrassed when the government reveals in court the names of those who have stashed away undeclared income in overseas accounts, finance minister Arun Jaitley said, reiterating that the Modi administration has never said it will not reveal the names.
The government was slammed last week by opposition groups who said it was making a U-turn on the issue of revealing the names of those who have undeclared income in foreign bank accounts.
“Once we inform the court, the names will automatically come out in public; the media and Congress got this story all wrong,” Jaitley told a news channel and added that it was the Congress which needs to be worried, and not the BJP.
The finance minister had said on Saturday that the NDA government will not withhold any information from the public about those who have stashed black money abroad, but was bound by the “legacy” of the treaties it had inherited.
The treatise prohibit the government from disclosing identities of those operating dubious accounts until investigations against them have been completed and the quantum of unaccounted income established.
Jaitley had said while the Union government was committed to disclose all information on black money , it was hamstrung by the Double Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) the Congress government signed with Germany in 1995 which lays down that the identity of a person having an account in a foreign bank can be disclosed only after charges have been filed against him in a court.
The NDA government had set up a special investigation team to probe the black money issue after the Supreme Court ordered a thorough probe.
Black money had emerged as a major poll issue and the BJP had promised to bring black unaccounted money in overseas bank accounts. It had attacked the Congress government for not revealing the names and soft-pedaling on the issue.
