"Nobody has ever suggested that the names should not be made public. They should be made public in accordance with the existing due process of law," he reiterated. NEW DELHI: Seeking to clarify the NDA government's stand on the issue of black money,Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said, "The NDA government will not withhold any information, including names of account holders who have stashed black money abroad, from the public; but the names will be revealed after following the due process of completing investigations and reaching conclusions about quantum of unaccounted money." 

"The NDA government stands committed to detect the names, prosecuting the guilty and making them public. We are not going to be pushed into an act of adventurism where we violate the treaties and then plead that we are no longer able to get the cooperation of reciprocating states," Jaitley wrote in his blog. "Such an approach may actually help the account holders. Adventurism will be short-sighted. A mature approach will take us to the root of the matter," he added. 

"Any premature and out of court disclosure of the names of account holders would not only vitiate the investigations but will enable such account holders to get away with their offences. It will also violate India's Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAA) with other countries and will choke receipt of all further information from those countries," Jaitley went on to elaborate. 

"All that the Government has requested the Supreme Court is to clarify that it has not prohibited the Government of India to enter into Treaties with countries wherein a commitment may be made by the Government to maintain confidentiality of information received as per international standards," he said. "If such a commitment to maintain the confidentiality is not given we will not receive any information about Indians hiding their money in other countries including offshore financial centres and tax havens. Thus the clarification sought from the Supreme Court is only to facilitate collection of information about illegal money stashed abroad," he added. 

"On October 15, 2014, a team of officials led by Revenue Secretary and comprising of Chairman, CBDT has signed a Joint Statement with the appropriate authorities in Switzerland with regard to investigation into black money stacked in Swiss banks," Jaitley said. He went on to explain the four important aspects of that agreement which are: 

(i) With regard to the list available with India of account holders in the HSBC, where Indian tax authorities have conducted independent investigations, the Swiss would provide India with details upon our furnishing of adequate evidence in this regard. 

(ii) Whenever India has some information/ documentary evidence, the Swiss would confirm the authenticity or otherwise of that evidence. 

(iii) This would be done in a time bound manner. 

(iv) Discussion would now start on a bilateral agreement on automatic exchange of information in the banking system. If this bilateral arrangement is arrived at, it will be an important milestone in detection of black money held by Indians in the Swiss banks.