Stud farm owner Hassan Ali Khan's Swiss deposits forged: Anand Sharma

A day after the BJP attacked the Congress of submitting forged papers to the Swiss authorities, Congress today sought to wash its hands off the controversy.
In a statement, Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said the IT department had conducted a search on the premises of Khan in January 2007 and one of the documents recovered showed that he has USD 8 billion deposits in the United Bank of Switzerland and the bank has permitted him to withdraw six billion.
"The Swiss authorities have informed that the documents recovered from Khan and his associates sent to Swiss authorities were forged," Sharma said adding "it is not correct that the Indian Government forged any document or Government of India submitted forged documents".
"Therefore, the insinuation that the Government of India doctored any document is false and contrary to facts," he said.
Senior BJP MP Arun Shourie said yesterday that the UPA government submitted forged papers to the Swiss authorities about Khan. He also said government would never get back black money stashed abroad.
Sharma said a notorised letter was also recovered during the search and the notary concerned confirmed that the documents had his certification.
The Congress leader said rather than dropping the case against Khan on the ground that the documents were forged, Government went ahead to initiate the case against him in December last year with his unauthorised dealing of eight billioni dollars.
The Enforcement Directorate has initiated a case under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) for the unauthorised dealing last year for which adjudication was pending, he said adding "various government agencies have been vigorously pursuing the matter with the Swiss authorities to ensure appropriate action and criminal prosecution".
The Swiss Federal Tax Administration has consistently refused to share bank related information on the grounds that information regarding bank deposits of Indian residents was covered by Banking Secrecy Laws, he said.
He said the Government was taking up the matter to renegotiate Article 26 of the OECD model tax convention so that information could be received and shared with other law enforcement agencies also.
"...consistent and vigorous efforts have been made by all authorities concerned to elicit information on illegal Indian money in Swiss accounts and at no time has the Government submitted any forged documents to Swiss authorities," he said adding, the allegation was "mischievous, misleading and politically motivated".