The Narendra Modi government has tied itself in knots over the issue of untaxed or black money, a political issue involving illegal money that has been lingering on for years and being monitored by the Supreme Court since 2009. The government has not been able to quantify how much black money is stashed illegally in foreign banks and projections of the total amount of this ill-gotten money by corrupt Indians vary from $500 billion to $1.4 trillion.

On Oct. 28, the Modi government got a severe tongue lashing from the Supreme Court, which reprimanded it for seeking modification of its order on black money on disclosing names of alleged account holders in foreign banks.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who has come under cloud for the way he has handled the black money issue before the Supreme Court, promptly assured to comply with the court order. But that is a given as none can afford to defy the Supreme Court orders.

The gravity of the Supreme Court’s annoyance with the Modi government comes out from the volley of stinging observations made by the court, the most damning of these being this one: “Why are you providing protective umbrella to foreign bank account holders? … We can’t leave the issue of bringing back black money to government. It will never happen during our time.”

In fact, the Supreme Court gave quite an earful to the Modi government on the issue of black money. Sample a few more observations of the court:

• We won’t change even a word of our order.

• New regime can’t ask for modification of order when it was passed in an open court and accepted by the government.

• You do not do anything. Just pass information of account holders to us and we will pass order for further probe.

• You do not have to take interest in people (having foreign bank accounts), the SIT (Special Investigation Team) will take care of it.

The conduct of the Modi government, particularly of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who is a leading lawyer of the country, is beyond comprehension. Several unanswered questions arise in this context.

1. Why in the first place did the government seek modifications in the Supreme Court orders for which it drew flak from the court on Oct. 28?

2. Was Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the know of his government’s strategy put before the Supreme Court under the supervision of legal eagle finance minister Arun Jaitley?

3. Will this botched up operation have political fallout and would it trigger a schism between the prime minister and his finance minister?

4. Why should the Supreme Court ask for the black money list from the government when it could have taken the same from the Special Investigation Team (SIT) which is functioning under the Supreme Court and which had the complete list of 600-odd names from June onward?

5. Don’t the two affidavits filed by the government before the Supreme Court indicate complete failure of communication within the government which led to an unpleasant situation of the Supreme Court questioning the bona fides of the government? And if there was indeed a breakdown in intra-government communication then who is responsible for it and whether it was done by someone deliberately to put Modi in bad light before the apex court?

6. Why couldn’t the Modi government tell the government that all the black money names were furnished to the SIT in June and the SIT is nothing but an investigative arm of the Supreme Court?

Whatever the truth is two things are for sure. One, the Modi government has fumbled over a crucial issue like black money, which topped the agenda of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during the April-May general elections campaigning. Two, the issue is set to ignite the Indian polity in the coming weeks and the government has given a stick to the opposition to beat it with.

Unsurprisingly, the Congress immediately pounced upon this opportunity and said the Supreme Court order of Oct. 28 exposed the BJP government’s “lame excuses.” Congress leader rubbed it in further by reminding the BJP that it had shouted from rooftops during the election campaign and saying huge sums were stashed away in over 50,000 accounts in foreign banks. Maken reminded that the then BJP president Rajnath Singh, who is currently the home minister, had said if his party came into power it would bring back the entire black money within 100 days.

Clearly, the chickens are coming home to roost for the BJP government. The flak the BJP government has received from the Supreme Court would dent its image before the public.

There is one important message in this context, which must be remembered by all politicians and political parties always: Make election promises, but don’t make such tall promises that are impossible to be fulfilled.