Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday called the publication of the Paradise Papers “a great development” for India, The Indian Express reported. “It shows that nothing remains a secret,” he said.
On Monday, 96 newspapers across the world, including The Indian Express, began to publish stories based on documents leaked from two financial companies – Bermuda’s Appleby and Singapore’s Asiaciti – that help the rich and the powerful move their money abroad and invest it in 19 tax havens. The information was released by United States-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. At least 714 Indians are named in the documents.
On Tuesday, Jaitley told the The Indian Express that with the leak, “the secrecy of tax havens and transactions done through them have been smashed”. He said the Paradise Papers will encourage cooperation between countries on financial matters, and that the multi-agency group investigating the Panama Papers will be reconstituted to monitor a probe on these new documents, as well.
Jailtley’s comments come a day after the Congress, soon after the leak, hit out at the Narendra Modi government for not doing enough to bring back black money stashed abroad. On Monday, Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said, “The Modi government has, so far, not made public names of those who have stashed black money abroad.”
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