Nobody with black money will be spared, don't say we are vindictive: PM Modi in Parliament

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday criticised the Congress-led UPA government for not forming a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to unearth black money during its tenure and lauded Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for coordinating with the Swiss banks to get information on the same.

"I think it's a great achievement that we got the nation talking about black money. The Supreme Court had asked for an SIT to be formed. What had happened for three years? No SIT was formed. The first decision the new government took, that too in its first Cabinet meeting was to form an SIT on black money," said Prime Minister Modi in his Motion of Thanks to President Pranab Mukherjee's address in the Lok Sabha.

"I must congratulate Arun Jaitley that he coordinated with the Swiss banks. Now, we can get information from them. We will not deviate from this path, and I must say no one will be spared. Please don't say we were vindictive in our actions," he added.

Recovering the black money stashed abroad was a prominent topic in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's election manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

"No one should think we are talking about black money because we are vindictive," PM Modi said.

In a major step, the NDA Government had in its first Cabinet meet constituted a SIT to unearth and bring back black money stashed abroad.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) had submitted its report to the Supreme Court in December last year which revealed that persons on the HSBC list held Rs. 4,479 crores in Swiss banks.

In an official statement released by the SIT, it had said that out of 628 names on the HSBC list received from France, 201 are either non-residents or non-traceable, leaving the cases of 427 persons as actionable cases.