Congress Extends Support To NDA Govt. To Pass Black Money Bill

11 May, New Delhi

The Congress Party on Monday came out in Support to the Passage of the Center’s Black Money Bill, which provides for penalty and tax up to 120 per cent along with Criminal Prosecution for those who have parked black money abroad.
Former union minister Sadananda Gowda said that the bill would create a new initiative as far as the black money of our country in other countries are concerned.

“Today we have decided to say that this bill should be passed in this session only and for this reason we took up the matter in the Parliament. Everybody has supported the bill. Certainly it will create a new initiative as far as the black money of our country in other countries is concerned,” Gowda said.

Senior Congress leader M. Veerappa Moily said that the Bill got the support because there should be a stand-alone act to tackle and curb money that is stashed away to other countries.

Another Congress leader, Shashi Tharoor, said that his party had expressed some very serious concerns about some of omissions and some ways in which the black money bill can be misused.

“As far as the Black Money Bill is concerned, we have supported it and allowed it to pass without any dissent. But in the debate we expressed some very serious concerns about some of omissions and some ways in which bill can be misused,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who moved the bill in the Lok Sabha, asked the opposition not to develop ‘cold feet’ in supporting the legislation.

Jaitley rejected the demands of the opposition parties to refer it to the Standing Committee. The Finance Minister said that delay in enacting the legislation would provide opportunity to offenders to transfer unaccounted overseas wealth to unknown destinations.

The bill provides for rigorous imprisonment of up to 10 years for offenders.