Arvind Kejriwal and his colleagues from the India Against Corruption (IAC) continued their series of weekly exposes, focusing this time on black money stashed in Swiss banks -- and the UPA government's inaction to retrieve it. Citing documents, he accused Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Naresh Goyal and a slew of other business leaders of having accounts with Swiss banks and demanded action against them.

"Why is there no I-T raid on Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Naresh Goyaland others," he asked. He named Pranab Mukherjee, the then finance minister and now president, for inaction after France handed over a list of 700 account holders. Only a handful of these account-holders -- with relatively small amounts -- faced tax raids but big guns were left off the hook, Kejriwal said.

“Pranab Mukherjee will have to answer why selected raid were conducted,” he added.

Pointing fingers at the Ambani brothers, Kejriwal said Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambai has Rs 100 crore and his brother Anil Dhirubhai Ambani has Rs 100 crore in Swiss account of HSBC. According to Kejriwal, Motech Software Private Ltd, a Reliance Group company has Rs 2,100 crore stashed money in Geneva branch of the HSBC bank. He said Reliance Industries Ltd has Rs 500 crore in the same bank. (See IAC website for full list)

However, HSBC had apologised to Mukhesh Ambani for putting his name in Swiss bank list in January 2012.

Kejriwal also revealed that other names like Naresh Kumar Goyal (Rs 80 crore), Burman brothers of Dabur group (Rs 25 crore) and Yashovardhan Birla, who has an account but no balance in it.

The activist turned politican also said Sandeep Tandon, who worked in Reliance had Rs 125 crore and his wife Anu Tandon Rs 125 crore in the HSBC bank of Geneva. Anu Tandon is now member of parliament from Unnao, Uttar Pradesh. Kejriwal said how could Pranab Mukherjee, then finance minister said in parliament that no MP money was found in the Swiss bank. “Anu Tandon is an MP from Unnao. She and her husband account is in Swiss bank. This means that Mukherjee lied in parliament.”

Training guns at the UPA government, Kejriwal said, “PM and others in the government are just puppets in the hands of the corporate. So nothing is being done.” He added, “Indian government has "sold" itself. Manmohan Singh government is threat to sovereignty of India.”

He also accused government of cover up after it got document from the Swiss officials on July 28, 2011.

He also alleged that HSBC bank has been promoting kidnapping, corruption, terrorism. Kejriwal also asked HSBC employees in India to quit their jobs to save the country. “I appeal to the 32,000 Indians who work in HSBC to quit their jobs. India is their country. They will get jobs in Indian banks,” he told the press. Kejriwal said that the top officers of HSBC in India be arrested for indulging in anti-Indian activities here.

Lawyer and member of IAC Prashant Bhushan said this is only the tip of the iceberg – the accounts in HSBC are a small proportion of accounts held by Indians abroad. He said, “Hawala transaction is an offence under FEMA. The penalty is double the amount involved. It is not a mere case of tax evasion.”

The lawyer added, “We are accused of hit-and-run but it seems even weekly exposes are not enough -- given the systemic problem in the country.”

The present CBI director once said that more than $ 500 billion of Indian black money was stashed abroad. A major chunk of this money is believed to be lying in Swiss banks in Switzerland. Would this money every come back to India? Developments of the last few years have given a ray of hope that if Indian government acted tough like its US counterpart did a few years back, India also might get access to the list of those having their undeclared accounts abroad. However, Indian government seems to be more interested in helping the guilty rather than punishing them.

According to the study done by Washington-based research group Global Financial Integrity (GFI), which tracks black money said India witnessed illicit financial outflows of a staggering $128 billion during the 10 years to 2009, making it one of the biggest victims of illicit money among developing nations.

From the IAC press statement:

Read more at the IAC website

In July 2011, Indian Government received a list of roughly 700 people having bank accounts in HSBC, Geneva. The list contains bank balances of these people in 2006. We could not access all the names but the following names do appear in that list:

Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambai – Rs 100 crores
Anil Dhirubhai Ambani – Rs 100 crores
Motech Software Private Ltd (Reliance Group company) – Rs 2,100 crores
Reliance Industries Ltd – Rs 500 crores
Sandeep Tandon – Rs 125 crores
Anu Tandon – Rs 125 crores
Kokila Dhirubhai Ambani – She has an account but there was no balance on that date
Naresh Kumar Goyal – Rs 80 crores
Burmans (3 family members) – Rs 25 crores
Yashovardhan Birla – no balance