A parliamentary committee has instructed the government to investigate black money reportedly stashed away by Nepalis in a Swiss bank.

The parliament's finance committee on Monday instructed the government to find out whether Nepalis, as revealed by a recent report, have stashed away billions of black money in HSBC's Swiss bank.

The move comes in the wake of a revelation made by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) that eight Nepalis stashed away Rs 5.38 billion ($54 million) in the Swiss bank in the year 2006-2007. The report, titled 'The Swiss Leaks', does not reveal names of Nepali account holders, though.

After holding a meeting with Nepal Rashtra Bank (NRB)'s governor Yubaraj Khatiwada, finance secretary Suman Sharma and director general of Department of Money Laundering Investigation (DMLI) Kebal Bhandari, the committee also instructed the government to initiate diplomatic efforts to extract information about black money.

"Extracting information about black money is not easy, especially when we have no agreement to this regard," said Prakash Jwala, president of the parliament's finance committee. "So, we also instructed the government to initiate diplomatic efforts to sign such agreements with the Swiss government."

The NRB governor Khatiwada told the parliamentary committee that the central bank was as clueless to black money as common people. "Getting our approval is necessary for any Nepali to deposit their money overseas," said he. "No one has ever sought our approval to deposit their money in the Swiss bank."

According to the DMLI director general Bhandari, it will not be easy to retrieve black money from the Swiss bank even if the government gathers evidence about it. "We must have a law to declare money deposited in the Swiss bank as illegal," said he. "Else, it will still be difficult."

After the monarchy was abolished following April Uprising-2006, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) had written to some Swiss banks to know if former royal members hold accounts there. All Swiss banks contacted by the MoFA replied no.