Parliament censures Team Anna

 Lok Sabha on Tuesday condemned Team Anna for "lowering the dignity" of Parliament after a resolution was moved over which members cutting across party line slammed the activists for using derogatory language against MPs.

"Any remark lowering the dignity and esteem of this august House is unwarranted and totally unacceptable," Speaker Meira Kumar said summing up the sense of the House, after a brief discussion.

She said members of the House undergo rigorous scrutiny by the Election Commission under the provisions of Representation of People Act, Model Code of Conduct and other legal requirements while filing their nomination for election.

"After meticulously assessing their conduct and performance, the people of India, in their wisdom, elect them. The Parliament, therefore, reflects the collective will of the people of our country," the Speaker said.

Led by JD-U leader Sharad Yadav, members from all political hues came together in Lok Sabha to attack Team Anna for using derogatory language against parliamentarians. Some of them even said that those who levelled attack against the temple of democracy should be summoned in the House to punish them.

Moving a resolution against the civil society members, Yadav said the Speaker should take suo motu action against them for their utterances against democratic institutions.

Describing Parliament as a "supreme institution", SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav said those civil society members who challenged its authority should be "summoned and taken to task". He requested consensus among members on the issue.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha today JD(U) president Sharad Yadav said that, “ People have seen what has been happening and what Team Anna has been speaking. I am worried that if the Parliament is not respected then where will the country go?

“A trend has started in the country to denigrate the politicians. Yes, the public has a right to be angry at us. But there should be a limit to it,” he added.

Directly attacking Team Anna, the JD(U) said that a kind of pessimism is being spread in the country in the wrong manner. Nonetheless, he accepted that fight against corruption should go on but in the right manner.

He also accepted that no everyone is of high morals in the Parliament. “There have been people in this House who have not been deserving of the place.” “But to disrespect the temple of democracy is not the right thing to do,” Sharad Yadav added.

“I do not object to the attack by Team Anna at us but no one should attack the institution of democracy,” he told the House.

The alleged inflammatory remarks made by Team Anna led to a huge uproar in both the Houses of Parliament on Monday and finally led to their adjournment.

Reacting to these allegations, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj had said, “Team Anna has lost its focus, crossed all limits."

Swaraj, whose party had supported Anna Hazare's call for the Lokpal Bill, even advised Team Anna to maintain its integrity.

Congress MP Sanjay Nirupam had also endorsed the views expressed by Swaraj and Yadav and said, “Team Anna members call themselves the representatives of civil society but they have themselves used unparliamentary language. They have conducted themselves in a highly irresponsible and uncivilized manner."

Team Anna landed in a fresh controversy after key team members including Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and others made derogatory remarks against the Parliamentarians during Anna Hazare’s day-long fast at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on Sunday.

Anna Hazare, while addressing his supporters, also warned that the government should be prepared to be voted out of power in 2014 if it does not pass the Lokpal Bill, which provides for a national anti-corruption agency.

CBI: Indians have stashed over $500 bn in banks abroad

Indians are the largest depositors in banks abroad with an estimated 500 billion US dollars (nearly Rs 24.5 lakh crore) of illegal money stashed by them in tax havens, the CBI Director said.

India, in particular, has suffered from the flow of illegal funds to tax havens such as Mauritius, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, British Virgin islands etc.

"It is estimated that around 500 billion dollars of illegal money belonging to Indians is deposited in tax havens abroad. Largest depositors in Swiss Banks are also reported to be Indians," CBI Director A P Singh said speaking at the inauguration of first interpol global programme on anti-corruption and asset recovery.

He said getting information about such illegal transactions is a time taking process as investigators have to peel each layer by sending judicial requests to the country where such deposits have been made.

"53 percent of the countries said to be least corrupt by the Transparency International Index are offshore tax havens, where most of the corrupt money goes. The tax havens include New Zealand which is ranked as the least corrupt country, Singapore ranked number five and Switzerland number seven," Singh said.

He said there is a lack of political will in the leading tax haven states to part with the information because they are aware of the extent to which their economies have become "geared to this flow of illegal capitals from the poorer countries."
The CBI Director said tracing, freezing, confiscation and repatriation of stolen assets is a legal challenge, a complex process which requires expertise and political will.

"Managing the asset recovery investigation is complex, time consuming, costly and most importantly requires expertise and political will. There are many obstacles to asset recovery. Not only is it a specialised legal process filled with delays and uncertainty, but there are also language barriers and a lack of trust when working with other countries," Singh said.

He said global financial markets allow money to travel faster and further making tracking the money trail in such cases even more difficult which necessitates the organisation of such global training programs as they enhance the knowledge of investigators in tracking assets created out of corrupt and criminal acts.

Singh said criminals are using the territorial issues of investigating agencies to their advantage by spreading their crimes to at least two countries and investing in a third.

He said the World Bank estimates the cross border flow of money from criminal activities and tax evasion is around 1 trillion US dollars of which 40 billion US dollars is bribe paid to government servants in developing countries.

Singh quoted the report to say that only five billion US dollars of this money has been repatriated during 15 years.