New Delhi:
Breaking the suspense Arvind Kejriwal opened another can of allegations today, this time claiming to have details of black money stashed away in Swiss bank by top industrialists and even a politician reportedly 'close' to Rahul Gandhi.
This press conference comes after Mr Kejriwal alleged scandals involving Robert Vadra, Salman Khurshid, Nitin Gadkari and the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance group.
This time Mr Kejriwal addressed the press conference flanked by Prashant Bhushan and Manish Sisodia.
Highlights of his press conference:
- When we had done the previous expose, BJP said we have a 'weekly market of exposes'
- I want to tell them - there are so many scams that a weekly market will not do - a daily one is needed. (Read: Press note on India Against Corruption website)
- The day there was a reshuffle I got a message from a senior Congress leader - saying we should stay on the Robert Vadra case.
- The expose today - the information we first got from a senior Congress leader. We further investigated the facts he had mentioned.
- The paper we will present today suggests that black money in Swiss banks can return to India but will not since the govt is in cahoots with criminals.
- The present CBI director estimates there are over 500 crores stashed abroad.
- 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.
- We do not have the full list but we have some names- Mukesh Ambani has Rs 100 crores.
- Anil Ambani has Rs 100 crores
Sandeep Tandon - former IRS, ED official - who raided Reliance has Rs 125 crores - Reliance Industries Rs 200 crores
Sandeep Tandon's wife Anu, who is now Congress MP from Unnao - and a member of Rahul Gandhi's core group - has Rs 125 crores. - Motech Software Private Ltd (Reliance Group company) - Rs 2,100 crores
- Kokila Dhirubhai Ambani has an account but in December 2006 it had no balance.
- Naresh Goyal has Rs 80 crores.
- From Dabur - 3 members have accounts - totalling Rs 25 crores.
- Yashovardhan Birla has an account but in December 2006 it has no balance.
- CBI had said there is Rs 25 lakh crores - these 700 names account for only Rs 6000 Crores.
- In 28 July 2011, the Income Tax (IT) Department raided three people in Delhi based on this list.
- All the three confessed - and we have the statements given by them to IT department here with us.
- Opening an account in a Swiss bank is easier than opening an account in SBI Bank. For a Swiss bank account you need to just make a call. for an SBI account you need to visit the branch. This is real easy - why would you have an SBI account - just go to a Swiss Bank.
- On what basis did the them Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee decide who were raided and who weren't?
- Why weren't Dabur or Birla or the Ambanis raided? Pranab Mukherjee may be President but he must answer.
- Finance Ministry sources say that Mukesh Ambani met Finance Minister and said " they were prepared to pay tax to buy peace."
- Even Mukesh Ambani must explain how the Rs 100 crores reached Swiss bank, how the account was operated - do they indulge in hawala transactions? And if they do then they should have been arrested.
- All the people - they should furnish all details of their accounts - all the debit entries must be checked.
- We would then know who all were bribed by money paid out from these accounts.
- We demand a raid immediately be carried out on Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Naresh Goyal, Yash Birla and the three Dabur brothers - and if hawala is proved, they should be arrested.
- Voluntary Disclosure Scheme (VDS) was designed to save these 700 people.
- How does the government know this isn't black money? Did they dream it up?
- I am revulsed at how the Government of India is saving such criminals.
- In Parliament the government denied that it is offering amnesty to wealthy citizens in reply to Gurudas Dasgupta's statement.
- The government lied in Parliament that it had info of Rs 565 cr - we know there was info of Rs 6000 crores and they have recovered only Rs 181 crores.
- HSBC is promoting kidnapping, corruption and terrorism in India by facilitating Hawala.
- In Pakistan, if someone wants money to reach India, they can do it through HSBC.
- In July, the US government realised that HSBC had some transactions which was making US vulnerable to drug , terror and illicit money. In that probe, they realised that HSBC operations in India were suspect.
- The Union Government gave a clean chit to HSBC employees in one month.
- The Manmohan Singh government has become a threat to the economic sovereignty of India.
- The UBS bank shared a list of account holders with the US government - if the government wants HSBC and UBS operations in India can be shut down and their bosses arrested.
- HSBC's top officers should be arrested and cases should be made out for waging war against India.
- HSBC's operations in India should be suspended - they should be forced to make a disclosure of accounts held by Indians - and the government should make it public.
Prashant Bhushan then took over the press conference: Highlights of what he said.- To those people who have been accusing us of hit-and-run tactics, the sheer scale of corruption is such that even one expose a week not enough.
- We are exposing cases that point to a systemic problem in the country.
- This is only the tip of the iceberg - the accounts in HSBC are a small proportion of accounts held by Indians abroad.
- Then entire ruling establishment is working at the behest of powerful people like the Ambanis.
Arvind Kejriwal speaks again - How do your investigative agencies function? When HSBC apologises, is that the end of the investigation?
- Send the rest of them to HSBC, they will get an apology too.
- Is this a criminal investigation, can the government say that because the bank apologized, there should be no investigation.
- Banks are notorious for masking the identity of owners.
- Mukesh Ambani says Congress is in his pocket. I think any government that comes into power is in his pocket.