Kejriwal targets Swiss bank account holders in 4th expose

NEW DELHI: Continuing their agenda of demolishing "holy cows" in politics and corporate world, India Against Corruption (IAC) activist Arvind Kejriwal on Friday addressed a press conference to expose the black money account holders in Swiss banks.

Kejriwal gave details of Swiss bank account holders which included top corporate honchos. The IAC activist said the government had details of 700 Swiss bank account holders in the HSBC Bank in Geneva.

He said his information was based on a list of 10 account holders in HSBC bank in Geneva that was passed on to him by a senior Congress leader that was later cross-checked by a team of his India Against Corruption (IAC) organisation.



"We got a CD - HSBC's Geneva branch has 700 accounts of Indian nationals. That list is available with the government with the amounts in the accounts in December 2006," Kejriwal said. He claimed the government was involved in the cover-up.

Mukesh and Anil Ambani, Naresh Goyal along with other leading industrialists in the Dabur and Birla group were some of the account holders, he said.

Anu Tandon and Sandeep Tandon - former IRS, ED official - who raided Reliance has 125 crores were other names Kejriwal discloses.

"In July 2011, Indian Government received a list of roughly 700 people having bank accounts in HSBC, Geneva. The list contains bank balances of these people in 2006," Kejriwal said.

Kejriwal said they could not access all the names but the following names appeared in that list:

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambai - Rs 100 crores
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani - Rs 100 crores
Motech Software Private Ltd (Reliance Group company) - Rs 2,100 crores
Reliance Industries Ltd - Rs 500 crores
Sandeep Tandon - Rs 125 crores
Anu Tandon - Rs 125 crores
Kokila Dhirubhai Ambani - She has an account but there was no balance on that date
Naresh Kumar Goyal - Rs 80 crores
Burmans (3 family members) - Rs 25 crores
Yashovardhan Birla - no balance

"Our sources told us Mukhesh Ambani had come to the finance ministry when the list of 700 Swiss account holders were provided to India. He told the finance ministry 'we are prepared to pay the tax to buy peace and no raids should be conducted'," said Kejriwal.

According to Kejriwal, the present CBI director once said more than Rs 25 lakh crore of ill-gotten Indian money was stashed abroad while the Indian government said that an amount of Rs 6,000 crore is deposited in Swiss banks.

He said even as black money was a big threat to India's economic sovereignty, the union government was trying to shield its perpetrators. "Indian government seems to be more interested in helping the guilty rather than punishing them."

Kejriwal said the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had even planned an amnesty for all the 700 Swiss account holders. He also demanded strict action against HSBC bank for encouraging kidnapping, corruption and terrorism in the country.

"Like America, we should enact a law that makes it mandatory for foreign banks operating in the country to furnish a list of all account holders to the income tax department," he said, asking the thousands of HSBC bank employees to quit their jobs.
The expose-press conference — that has now become an almost weekly affair — has already served judgment on two political figures, Robert Vadra and Nitin Gadkari, and a corporate czar, Mukesh Ambani.

IAC headed by activists Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan has created a profile for the till now unnamed political party on the perception that leading ruling parties Congress and BJP are corrupt and hand-in-glove with big business.
Sources - Times of India