The Government has ruled out disclosing information about Indian accounts in foreign banks. However, it agreed to bring out a white paper on black money.
Meanwhile, the adjournment motion on black money in the Lok Sabha was rejected by voice vote. This motion was moved by the Bhartiya Janata Party leader, Mr Lal Krishna Advani.
The Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, said that the Government had received 36,000 bits of information. “If I publish it, the same country will say you have violated the Agreement. We will dry up our source of information,” he argued. He also clarified that no Member of Parliament figures in the list of account holders abroad that he had received.
Dissatisfied by the reply given by the Finance Minister, the Mulayam Singh-led Samajwadi Party, which is supporting the Government from outside, staged a walk out.
Strongly rejecting Opposition charges of “inaction”, Mr Mukherjee said that he needed to ascertain details about Indian account holders before publicising them as some of them might be genuine account holders who have got the permission of RBI. He said Indian investors have expanded their operations abroad and publishing names could harm their businesses.
He also informed the House that three organisations, NIPFP, NIFM and NCAER, have been mandated to make independent assessments of the quantum of black money in the country.
Mr Mukherjee said there was no conflict of interest between the objectives of the Opposition and the Government, and both could work together.
Earlier moving the motion, Mr Advani asked the Government, “Tell the world that we are willing to place all the cards on the table. We have nothing to hide.”
Mr Advani said, “It will be a humiliation if we don't get to know the names of the account holders from our Prime Minister or our Finance Minister but come to know from WikiLeaks.”
The Chairman of the BJP Parliamentary Party said his party agreed with the estimate of an international think-tank, ‘Global Financial Integrity.' The agency had said in its report that Rs 25 lakh crore had been illegally stashed abroad by Indians.