Sealed
Envelope Revelations
Has the Supreme Court, in its extraordinary
and athletic activism, bitten off more than a vigilante would care to chew upon?
Can it actually cause to bring back, any,
let alone all, of the money stacked abroad, just by directing the Indian
Government with its on high strictures? If this comes to pass, India will have
changed for all time, and somewhat miraculously, a bit like flying about on a
high trapeze without any visible swings.
Which is why, despite the clamorous din
this subject evokes in the national media, the chances of even a limited
success ultimately, are extremely dim.
BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, and others, amongst the BJP and
its supporters, made full use of the emotive issue during the electoral
campaign, talking of trillions of dollars to rival several years of national
GDP. But this was to win power at the Centre. Delivering on this thorny issue
when in power is a wholly different matter, fraught as it is, with legal loopholes
and plausible deniability.
Besides, let us be clear, that other
Governments, Banks etc. are not in the writ or sway of India’s Supreme Court,
mighty as it may be, and it may be setting itself up for a humiliating
embarrassment, when our Government, compelled to carry out its ham-fisted
directives, or face contempt of court charges, is roundly ignored, or downright
turned away. Even mighty America’s record on trying to redress the balance on
this truism is patchy at best.
Crooks know, have always counted on, the
idea, that the best thing to do with ill-gotten gains is to get it out of the
country. This is true of every thief universally, and places like Switzerland, Liechtenstein
and every island tax haven around the globe, have catered to such people for
centuries on a no- questions-asked- and mum’s the word basis.
The Swiss banks are said to be bedrock rich
today on the unclaimed billions in deposits of rich Jews without heirs,
eliminated in the Holocaust. This, even as their money keeps earning compound
interest, and is now, to all intents and purposes, the Banks’ own money, along
with that of sundry dictators and criminals in similar circumstances.
The Supreme Court will now get, because it
made bold to ask for it, a complete list of ‘stolen names’ obtained,
as it happens, by bribery, from disgruntled bank officials in Switzerland and Lichtenstein in 2009 and
2011. Those were the salad days of UPA times. The names, albeit passed on by
the German and French governments, who incidentally discovered a large number
of Indian sounding names on it, while
trying to ferret out their own tax evaders.
But ethnic Indians these days possess a
rainbow of different nationalities for a start. The head of the Tata Group in
India, Cyrus Mistry is, for example, an Irish National, as is his father and
Svengali, Pallonji Mistry.
The Supreme Court, indeed at the apex of
all the over- burdened Indian courts, from the Sessions and District levels, to
the State High Courts; has been muscling into the province of the Executive and
the Legislature for quite a while now.
Perhaps it started, poignantly in retrospect, with the Allahabad High
Court, precipitating the Emergency, by voiding Indira Gandhi’s election way
back when.
And now, it wants to be, perhaps unknowingly, both
Communist-hating anathema Joe McCarthy and the Witchfinder General, rolled up
into one, on the issue of Bollywood evocative Kala Dhan, Black Money, illegal foreign accounts, terrorism,
kick-back and drug money, smuggling, prostitution, white slavery, arms trading;
what have you.
It is what another analyst called the proceeds of ‘red money’ as
in ‘blood-diamonds’, plus the ‘black’. Do we have the legal framework to tackle
both?
The public, especially those who used to
frequent what were once called the ‘stall seats’ in the single screen cinemas of yore, and not a few from the middle class, are delighted at
the prospect. Nothing like a public hanging or a drawing and quartering or something
like this in its modern day avatar! Schadenfreude, the Germans call it, institutionalising the
perverse sentiment, it is the joy we get
from witnessing, or even anticipating, another’s downfall.
Is all this just a cleansing or an exercise
in puritanical morality returning to governance? Has the BJP and the UPA, when
it was in power, been dragging it out, in order to protect its own venality? Or
is the whole thing incredibly difficult to pull off, what with its massive
privacy issues, no matter how much baying for blood is indulged in by a
provoked, politically manipulated, but simplistic public?
Are we really going to see any of the money
coming back? I would not hold my breath, through all the racket. Will anyone’s
property be confiscated in anticipation, with the burden of proof placed on his
media condemned shoulders? I hope not, because despite what Vadra says, I like
to think we are not a banana republic.
Will anyone go to jail? Well, then sitting
CM of Tamil Nadu Jayalalalithaa did, for
massive graft and corruption, along with all her closenesses . That too, on the
say so of a fire and brimstone Goan Sessions Judge, backed up by a High Court
judge from Karnataka. So, in today’s India, it is quite possible.
Some things may indeed have changed in this
country. But really, by how much? And do we, as a country, have the clout to
bring the money back from foreign banks? What if the accused start shifting it
about the globe, if they haven’t done so already, in anticipation, and
at the suggestion of their bankers?
Will we see any of the trillions that could
theoretically cancel our National Debt and create surpluses to rival China’s?
Well, I for one, doubt it, but am looking forward to the headlines.
(968
words)
October
28th, 2014
Gautam
Mukherjee
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