By IANS,
Chandigarh : Former Punjab director general of police K.P.S. Gill Wednesday accused the central government of causing an inordinate delay in filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court about the action taken to bring back the black money stashed in foreign banks.
“We had filed a PIL (public interest litigation) in the Supreme Court of India, seeking urgent measures to bring back the black money to India last month. However, the government took a long time to file an affidavit, and did not honour their commitment to file it in 48 hours,” Gill told reporters at a press conference here.
The petition was filed by Gill and five others, including former law minister Ram Jethmalani, April 22 and the government submitted its affidavit May 3.
“In fact, we are not satisfied with this affidavit as they have mentioned only about Pune-based businessman Hasan Ali Khan and also not mentioned the complete facts about his money laundering activities. The government is afraid of disclosing the other names,” said Gill.
“This black money is estimated (to be) worth Rs.70 lakh crore (Rs.70 trillion) that was siphoned out of India in the accounts of foreign banks. We have come to know about this figure from newspapers and magazines reports,” he said.
A huge portion of this money was deposited in undisclosed accounts of the UBS Bank at Zurich in Switzerland, outside the jurisdiction of India, Gill pointed out.
About their petition, he said: “The main aim of our petition in the Supreme Court is to track the progress made in the case of black money that is hoarded illegally in foreign banks. This is an important issue and so far development in the case is not at all satisfactory.”
“We want to pressurise all the political parties to take up this issue seriously without involving politics into it. We want to bring that money back to India through the intervention of the Supreme Court and the government should spend it in the right channel.”
The Supreme Court Monday censured the union government for its failure to prosecute Pune businessman Hasan Ali Khan under the Money Laundering Act for stashing a huge sum of black money in UBS Bank in Switzerland.