BHOPAL: A day after the Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal governments withdrew the general consent accorded to the CBI to conduct operations in their states, the union finance minister Arun Jaitley hit back saying those who have a lot to hide would fear the central investigation agency.
"We've a federal structure in India and under that federal structure only, the CBI was created initially for the employees of the central government and then, to investigate certain kinds of very serious cases in the states, which were referred to it either by the states or courts," Jaitley told journalists in Bhopal on Saturday.
"It's only those who have something to hide will take such a step of letting the CBI not come to their state. There is no sovereignty of any state in the matter of corruption. It's believed that Andhra's move is not motivated by any particular case, but by fear of what is likely to happen.
"While referring to the alleged Sarada chit fund scam and the Narda sting operation in West Bengal, the finance minister said "Sarada and Narada in West Bengal cannot be wiped off merely by saying that for the future I de-notify the CBI.
"Defending the November 2016 move of the Narendra Modi government to demonetize the twin high value currency notes, he said the it was not a political move, but instead a highly ethical decision.
"It was a highly ethical move, it was no secret. In fact many in India were not tax compliant. Compelling them to put their undeclared moneys into the banks had an ethical rationale to it.
Every move this government has taken so far, from demonetization to GST, to putting the entire tax system direct or indirect online and Jan Dhan accounts. This has helped us to formalize a large part of the Indian economy, still work in progress. The net impact of this is that both centre and the states have much larger revenues.
"He added that demonetization has increased tax return filings and also revenue of the states, which has rendered resources to the government to work for welfare and development, particularly of the poorer and deprived sections.Jaitley was in Bhopal to release the BJP's vision document for the November 28 assembly polls in MP.