THE PREDICTABLE SCANDAL ....

agrasen

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Fw: The predictable scandal, wealth stolen from the country – Arun Shourie- Achievements of Man Mohan Singh

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Mohan Gupta Tue, May 12, 2009 at 7:18 PM
To: filmfare.rdd@wwm.co.in
The predictable scandal, suppressing facts to SC: wealth stolen from the

country – Arun Shourie

http://sites.google.com/site/hindunew/recovering-looted-wealth
http://www.bjp.org/content/view/2903/394/
12 May 2009, Press statement issued by Shri Arun Shourieji, MP
For over a week, newspapers have been publishing reports that the Swiss
authorities rejected the request to disclose details of the accounts and
transactions of Hassan Ali Khan because the Government of India had sent
forged papers.
This has now been confirmed by the spokesman of the Ministry of Justice of
the Swiss Government in his interview to CNN-IBN.
The Justice Ministry official has also revealed that this fact about the
forgery had been communicated to the Indian Government in early 2007
itself.
He has said that the Indian Government was requested to provide valid
documents and to confirm that the case against Hassan Ali Khan is a
criminal
one.
The Indian Government sent some documents in March 2007, and even these
were
not the requisite ones.
Since then, the Indian Government has not got back to the Swiss Government
at all on the matter – neither to show that the documents it had supplied
were genuine and adequate nor to replace them with genuine documents and
ones that are required under the law.
What can this indicate except that what was done was done by design?
Furthermore, it is shocking that the Government has suppressed these
facts –
what it had ostensibly done, and what the Swiss Government had
communicated
to it – from the Supreme Court in its affidavit-in-reply to the PIL that
has
been filed by concerned citizens. As is well known, suppression of facts
from the court – and that too from the highest court of the country – is a
grave offence on its own. The Government knows this as well, and yet has
chosen to suppress them rather than let the Court, and, through it, the
people get an opportunity to learn the truth.
That this Government, the Government that has let Ottavio Quattrochi take
away the money that had been frozen on orders of the courts; this
Government
which then used the CBI to let the man off the hook completely; this
Government in which corruption has reached levels that were unheard of
till
now; this Government which has been consistently soft on terror, that this
Government should now have stooped so low as to help an operator like
Hassan
Ali Khan by sending forged documents to a foreign Government is entirely
in
character.
Based on what they have been told by officials of intelligence agencies as
well as of the Enforcement Directorate, the media have reported that
Hassan
Ali Khan
• Has been known to be connected to Dawood Ibrahim
• Has been known to have been channeling very large amounts from unknown
sources into the Indian stock market
• Has had 8 to 9 billion dollars in the UBS and other banks of
Switzerland
• Has been responsible for hawala transactions of over Rs. 35,000 crore
through Swiss banks.
That such a nefarious operator should be helped by this Government is
entirely predictable – it is the Congress(I) Government of Karnataka which
refused to permit the CBI to investigate the equally notorious Telgi, and
later put obstacle after obstacle in its course.
Apart from the sorts of statements by which it tried to mislead the
country
when Mr. Advani raised the demand for getting India’s stolen wealth back,
the way it has helped Hassan Ali Khan exposes its character, and the fact
that as long as such a Government is in office, the country will never get
its wealth back.
But what is at stake is not just the wealth that has been stolen from the
country. In addition,
• the country’s honour is at stake
• and its security.
Once again, the country is being held up to ridicule – once again, the
world
is being shown how the Government of India will bend our laws and
institutions to help the worst sorts of criminals and their associates,
exactly as banana republics do.
Moreover, international bodies as well the National Security Advisor of
this
very Government have pointed out that black money, hawala operations as
well
as tax havens are being used by terrorists and agencies like the ISI for
carrying out terrorist and anti-India operations.
The Asia Pacific Group, which has been studying money laundering and
terrorist operations, pointed out in 2005 that India had not taken the
requisite steps in this regard, that it had not even carried out the
comprehensive threat assessment that was required.
The Government did nothing.
No less an authority than the National Security Advisor has been stressing
publicly since early 2007 that stricter provisions need to be put in place
to check money flows to and from tax havens, and to ensure that banking
secrecy is brought to an end, as these channels are being used by
terrorists
and their sponsors.
The Government did nothing – actually, it did something: around exactly
the
time that the National Security Advisor was urging the foregoing, in
February-March 2007, it sent forged documents to foreclose any possibility
of facts being discovered about Hassan Ali Khan and his associates.
In June 2008, the Government-appointed Administrative Reforms Commission,
headed by its very own, M. Veerappa Moily, drew attention to the urgent
need
to plug terrorist financing. In its 8th Report, the Commission listed the
channels through which, and the guises under which terrorist organizations
and their sponsors were sending money for their operations in India. In
particular, it urged that the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist
operations needed to be merged. It made a series of detailed
recommendations
in this regard.
The Government did nothing.
That on even so grave a matter the state of affairs is exactly as it was
is
evident from the fact that in March 2009, the International Narcotics
Control Strategy Report released by the US State Department again shows
that, far from taking effective steps, India has not even brought its
legal
framework against money laundering and terrorism financing at par with the
regime agreed to by the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force. It
urges the country to swiftly do so.
We urge the media to continue to pursue the facts.
We urge the people to see how the country’s development, its security, its
honour are being jeopardized by this Government.
And how even the obvious steps will just not be taken till this Government
remains in office.
(Shyam Jaju)
Headquarter Incharge





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