Finance Minister Arun Jaitley shared the details of his meeting with economy and finance ministers of Switzerland. He spoke with NDTV's Shweta Rajpal Kohli on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Here is an edited transcript:
Question: If you could share with us the details of any interactions that you have had on the big issue of black money stacked in Switzerland. Because your meeting with Swiss finance minister lasted for 35-40 minutes.
Answer: You must realise that the world is changing as far as the issue of black money is concerned. Earlier, the concept was that you could stock your money in a bank account and nobody will be able to break into that secrecy. Switzerland has been evolving its position over the years and therefore Switzerland has been cooperating with various states.
Now, as far as India is concerned we have been asking them for cooperation. The revenue secretary had led a team of officials to Switzerland. On the 15th of October last year, we had a joint statement which was a statement of understanding. The Swiss have a clear position they will not give you any information on basis of the stolen data. So if you come to us with stolen data we won't recognize that, we won't cooperate.
Our position now is that in case (that's our alternate position not preferred position) we are able to give you independent evidence, independent of the fact that the names of those people are contained in the list so on basis of this independent evidence will you give us the detailed information. So the 15th October arrangement was, yes, they would do. And they would do it expeditiously.
In continuation of that agreement, I have had a detailed meeting with them as to what can be the parameters of that independent evidence. Of course, I am not in a position to disclose it to the media. Our tax officials are working round the clock. They are trying to finish all the assessments, they are trying to collect evidence, there are several who have admitted the fact that they have accounts in that list and now there is some independent material available. So we have to come back to them with that material on basis of which we can get the information.
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