India has strongly objected to Switzerland's denial of information about account details of certain Indians at HSBC's Swiss Bank branches, in whose cases, incriminating evidence of tax evasion have been found. In a strongly-worded letter to his Swiss counterpart, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has stressed that an effective exchange of tax-related information was extremely important for economic cooperation between the two countries and Switzerland must honour its rights and duties agreed to in their bilateral Direct Tax Avoidance Convention.

This is Mr. Chidambaram's third letter to Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer Schlumpf within four months on this matter and he again reiterated that India would continue to take a position at the Global Forum about Switzerland lacking legal and regulatory framework for an effective exchange of information.