New Delhi: Terming black money as cancer for society, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy Thursday said the NDA government was committed to bring back to the country the illegally stashed money abroad.
"The pace (to bring back black money) is slow. In my opinion, I am not happy with that. But we are a democratic party and I am in a minority. Majority feels it should be done slowly (and carefully). Not in one go. So they are doing it. I am confident that we will get it back," Swamy told PTI on the sidelines of an event at Press Club here to discuss black money.
He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is committed to the cause of bringing back black money.
"He (Modi) is very much committed. All say don't give priority to this. Or this will happen or that will happen. Our Parliament will not run. Rajya Sabha will not run. But the government is doing its work," the BJP leader said.
To a question on criticism of NDA government for not putting in more efforts on black money, he said "I am sad why we did not do what we could have done in nine months. But we will be able to do it in next one year. It requires two three strong ministers to do the task".
Swamy criticised the use of Participatory Notes (P Notes), an instrument for overseas entities to invest in Indian stock market, saying it was being used to manipulate it.
Black money is because of the P Notes, hawala and variety of other reasons. The Tarapore Committee (constituted by the RBI) had in its report said that stock market can be manipulated by P Notes. It is a real cancer for the society, he said.
Swamy also supported former Union Minister Ram Jethmalani, who was also a speaker at the event, view that Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement(DTAA) was not for bringing back black money but to cause problem for honest businessmen.
"So called DTAA is not for getting information (on black money). It has nothing to do with thieves, dacoits or money launderers. It deals with honest businessmen who have businesses in two countries and not paying taxes either of the countries," he said.
Jethmalani, who had raked up the black money issue in the Supreme Court, was also critical of alleged lack of efforts by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on checking black money, claiming that some of his suggestions were not agreed by him.
He also criticised former Finance Minister P Chidambaram for allegedly not doing much on black money.
Jethmalani, who said he has more friends in Congress than in BJP now, claimed that Chidambaram supported the use of P Notes which is "more prominent method of routing black money in India".
Prof Arun Kumar from Jawaharlal Nehru University, another speaker during the event, supported Jethmalani's unhappiness over the working of the Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) on checking black money.
"The SIT is a supervisory body. It has all the government agencies under it," Kumar said questioning as to what new mandate the member agencies have got, which they did not have, to check black money.
Biswajit Bhattacharya, former Additional Solicitor General and Pranjoy Guha Thakurta, journalist, were other speakers during 'meet the press' programme on 'black money and India'.
