Activist Anna Hazare may have galvanised India's youth on the issue of corruption but the central government doesn't seem to be changing its approach to the issue of black money.
According to a reliable source in the government, the finance ministry has received over 600 names of Indians who have accounts in HSBC Bank's Switzerland branch, from the government of France.
These names were obtained by the French government after an employee of HSBC Bank became a whistleblower. He took refuge in France and brought along a long list of account holders who have allegedly stashed money in the Swiss branch of HSBC Bank.
Now the Indian government is sitting on those names, giving excuses like some of those names may be of Indians who have legitimate bank accounts, said a senior politician in the government during an off-the-record conversation with rediff.com.
In March 2010, banking giant HSBC had publicly apologised after revealing that details of 15,000 wealthy customers, who had accounts with its Swiss branch, were stolen by an employee.
The bank had initially claimed that less than ten clients had been affected by the incident but later said that Herve Falciani, a former computer specialist with the bank, has taken away the secret data and handed it over to the French government.
Since then, various affluent customers of HSBC have been worried. At that time, the bank had said that nearly 15,000 bank accounts, whose details have been stolen, were operated before October 2006.
Nearly 9,000 accounts, which were closed down long ago, were also affected. It's believed that India got the names its account holders from the list of Falciani.
But this piece of information could not be confirmed.
The United Progressive Alliance government has not informed the people, so far, about the details of Swiss account holders it has received from France.
