Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani on Monday denied in the Supreme Court that the German government had imposed a condition that the names of black money holders revealed by it to the Government of India should not be made public.

In his affidavit in response to the Centre’s plea for modification of the May 1 order, Mr. Jethmalani said: “The present application is an attempt to make the Special Investigation Team dysfunctional and toothless by depriving it of material and information. I deny that the German government had imposed any obligation of confidentiality. This defence was manufactured by the previous UPA government and is being repeated by the present one without any sanction from the Cabinet.”

He said the government had failed to comply with the directions of the apex court to reveal all the relevant documents and information given by the German authorities.

Mr. Jethmalani said the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank had a branch or a subsidiary in Geneva, Switzerland.

Certain employees stole the data with respect to about 50,000 accounts maintained in the branch. The CDs containing the above information were purchased/obtained by the French government and used in spite of protest by the bank. The French government made available this information to India and it had nothing to do with the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement.