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Recently, the Government stated before the Supreme Court that the disclosure of the names would sabotage the investigation and benefit the guilty. This has created a doubt on the integrity, sincerity and seriousness of the Government. I would thank my friends in Trinamool Congress for agitating on the issue of black money in this House which has forced the Government to agree to discuss it in any form the hon. Speaker agrees or chooses.
The foremost clamour in the country today is that the Government should disclose not only the names of the culprits but also its routes and efforts to bring black money back from foreign countries. The first question that comes to the mind is, has any estimate been made so far by the Government agencies with respect to the quantum of unaccounted money, both external and internal? One figure was quoted by the senior most leader of the House, Shri L.K. Advani. He had said in 2011 that some Rs. 28 lakh crore, which is around US $ 466 billion was stashed away illegally in bank accounts overseas. He said that he was using a study by Global Financial Integrity, which is a Washington based non-profit firm that has research and advocacy on illicit financial flows. In the Government of India White Paper placed in this Parliament in 2012, the total deposit of Indians in all Swiss banks was stated to be around US $ 2.11 billion, which is nowhere even near the lowest estimate of US $ 466 billion. Instead of going into the figures, which are more confusing, I would like to mention here that the debate on black money has both political and economic overtones.
But at the same time, Shri Modi has given an assurance to the country that he will bring back every pie of it and each citizen of the country will get Rs. 15 lakh each. That means he had made an assessment of that. He corroborated what was said by Baba Ramdev and he also corroborated what was done in 2011 by a Committee which was constituted under the Chairmanship of Ajit Doval who is now the NSA Chief.… (Interruptions) It is all right. Chairman or not, he was there because that was mentioned first. That name is the first name in that Report. In addition to that, Shri Vaidyanathan was also there as Chairman or Member. These are the people who gave the names and that is endorsed by Shri L.K. Advani. It means that it is an authenticated figure. Today, he cannot backtrack from that figure.
When black money used to be raised by senior leaders like Shri L.K. Advani, he used to be very attentive to the answers given by the then Treasury Benches and he used to be present in the House. But today, I do not find him. I think he has been totally disillusioned by the performance of this Government because they have totally failed him. They have totally failed the nation and they have failed their own senior leader.
This apart, Shri Rohatgi, the Attorney-General who has been appointed by the present Government told the court that most of the transactions which were disclosed had taken place during 1999-2000. That means these transactions had taken place during the NDA regime. I think they owe an explanation for that.