Shadow Boxing

Shadow Boxing

‘Desire is full of endless distances’-Robert Hass

‘Time is a flat circle’-True Detective, SO1EP5

Immediately after the Through The Looking Glass action of the Supreme Court, the complications arising out of the apex court’s judicial activism have begun. After its firm directive to hand over the entire list of possible tax evaders to itself, it promptly handed over, back-to-back, the demanded sealed envelope of 628 old-hat names, unopened, to the Government’s constituted SIT.

But the SIT already had them, the same names, as of June 2014, when the BJP Government set it up, and quickly said so.

In mirror images, everything, as we know, is exactly its reverse, and so we must not be surprised if we get less international cooperation on the search for black money stashed abroad going forward, rather than more.

This is because the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, has potentially stomped all over the confidentiality clauses in international multilateral information sharing agreements.

In fact, anticipating as much, even as there was one, The Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement, signed on the 29^th of October by 51 countries, and a few tax havens, in the OECD Office in Berlin, Germany; India has decided, like Miss Otis, to send its regrets. This is because, should the SIT make the names  in its possession, public, then India would be in violation of the ‘shush’ clause. And there is, after all, no telling what the most-high Supreme Court may direct next in the matter, having set up a sharpish deadline for the SIT investigation thus far.

Meanwhile, Godman cum entrepreneur Baba Ramdev, very keen on the issue, has opined that the real meat is actually in the UBS list, and the Government must try and get the alleged 8,000 Indian names on it. The HSBC list, he said, has been kicking around for so long already. The implication being, that everyone on it has made alternative arrangements for their lucre, filthy black, or clean as driven snow, by now.

The SIT on its part, not to be thought of as inaccessible, allowed that about half the people on the list of 628 were residents, and the others were NRIs. Meanwhile, the world is inching ahead, now within a couple of months of Christmas.

And there are two more information sharing pacts on the anvil, one with Switzerland, and the other, a tax compliance agreement with the United States, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act Alert (FATCA), that have also been placed in jeopardy, as of now, for the same reason of possible confidentiality clause breaches. If the US one is not signed, it will mean that withholding tax will be deducted from remittances sent abroad via Indian Banks operating in the US.

Meanwhile, there are many tantalizing numbers and stories being bandied about- over $450 billion stashed in Switzerland alone since 1947,sadly whittled down to $140 billion lately, says one such. Another reminisces about a long-standing Congress stalwart of a former Union Minister for nearly everything, long rumored to accept all his ‘gratuities’, not in wads of hawala-needing notes, but in neat little pouches of quality diamonds. These being  easy to carry in the folds of his never searched, diplomatically immune Khadi kurta, and place in a numbered safety deposit box in Zurich, and when that got a little heavy, another one in Geneva, and then yet another in Berne, and so on. This is, of course, as modus operandi, both smart and classy. The richest Jews, over the centuries, burdened by the proverbial Mark of Cain, would certainly approve.

Besides, the poor people in the SIT have their work cut out for them! At the best of times, the SIT will find it is dealing with some very intelligent and sophisticated people on its present and other future lists that may land with a thump on its floor mat. These are serious-minded folk with access to the best in advisers, lawyers, accountants, bankers, fixers, intelligence inputs, lobbyists and PR agents.

Flat-footed, gum-shoed sleuths, and even ones with perfect arches, will not get very far on earnestness alone.  Besides, they truly need to be incorruptible themselves. The recent stories about the CBI Director Ranjit Sinha’s impressive Visitor’s Log, and his wanting investigations on it length , breadth, and heft, to be held ‘in camera’, is not very encouraging. And it also puts a further shading to the CBI’s reputation of being a ‘caged parrot’.

While it was long assumed the ‘cage’, such as it is, belonged to the Government, as did the ‘parrot’ within, the current Director’s residential Visitor’s Log seems to indicate a greater independence of spirit at the apex of the CBI.

The BJP Government plans to ask the SIT what it proposes to do regarding confidentiality of the names given to it, and going forward, with a mind to signing some of the information sharing treaties in future.  The SIT, being a creature of the ruling Government, is sure to answer with vows of silence and promises of swift, diligent, quiet, efficient investigations. Left to itself that is.

But, the SIT, indeed the Union Government too, can’t do anything but comply, if asked to figuratively sing, even dance, by the Supreme Court of India; within, of course, the present legal framework!

(874 words)

October 30^th, 2014

Gautam Mukherjee