Finance Minister Arun Jaitley launches clean money web portal to tighten the grip on tax evaders, in New Delhi on Tuesday. Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia is also seen. PTI Photo
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday that people in high places buying assets through shell firms is not a “small matter” and “the day of reckoning has come for many”.
Responding to charges by former finance minister P Chidambaram and the Congress that the Modi government was pursuing political vendetta against Chidambaram and his son, Jaitley said, “Unless there is substantial basis and reason to suspect there was tax evasion or crime committed, these departments don’t act.”
Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “Chidambaram is accountable for the property his son holds and will have to answer to the CBI and cooperate with their procedures.”
Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal also rejected Chidambaram’s charge that he was being targeted for his newspaper columns, which were critical of the government. “The issue was why beneficiaries of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) gave money to the firms owned by his son,” Goyal said.
Goyal said the former finance minister’s columns “did not exactly set the Yamuna on fire. He will be accountable for his son’s stroke.”
Goyal said the BJP government never comes in the way of law and that investigative agencies work independently.
“After all, it is not us who demanded reopening of fodder scam cases. The Supreme Court gave the verdict,” he said.
Hitting out at the Congress, Goyal said the Opposition party was feeling “helpless” in the face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “massive popularity” and instead of introspecting, it was raising “wrong issues”.