New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday hit out at the Congress on the black money issue saying that it will be embarrassed once the names of people holding illicit foreign accounts are made public.
“The names (of black money account holders) will be public shortly... I can assure you there is no embarrassment I (BJP) will have when all the names are disclosed. There is some embarrassment the Congress will have because of those names,” Mr Jaitley told a news channel.
The Congress had attacked the BJP for refusing to make the names of people on the blackmoney list public.
The government had told the Supreme Court that it cannot disclose such details given by countries with which India has double taxation avoidance agreements (DTAAs).
Finance minister Arun Jaitley, clarified that India’s double taxation does not prevent the government from revealing the names of people holding illicit foreign accounts to the courts.
He said that India’s double taxation avoidance agreement with Germany only restrain disclosure of names in media and not in court. “It (tax avoidance treaty) did not prevent us from disclosing the names. It merely says disclose it to a court and don’t disclose it to the media. And when you disclose it to a court, it automatically gets carried into the media. That’s all we are saying,” added Mr Jaitley.
Mr Jaitley said the names of those black money account holders against whom charges are filed by Indian authorities will be disclosed in the court shortly. The minister said the Congress got it all wrong because the media “completely misreported” the case.
“Media said we are not going to disclose it. Our case was we will disclose it as per the due process of law,” said Mr Jaitley.
