New Delhi, March 21: The Rajya Sabha today provided the stage for a spirited former BJP leader Ram Jethmalani to take on the Centre and ruling party members as he reminded them about the Indian culture of respecting elders.

Speaking during Question Hour, Jethmalani, an RJD MP, charged the BJP members with having no "sense of Indian culture" after the treasury benches shouted and demanded his apology over his remarks about a reply by finance minister Arun Jaitley.

Jaitley, answering a question from the Congress's M.V. Rajeev Gowda on black money, had said that "no one definitive estimation can be made at this stage (about black money)".

When chairman Hamid Ansari asked Jethmalani to ask a supplementary question, he used certain words to express dissatisfaction over Jaitley's answer, prompting the treasury benches to demand his apology. "You do not want to hear a man who is as old as your father... You do not have even a sense of Indian culture," Jethmalani said.

He said a taskforce of the BJP that had studied the problem of black money had estimated that around Rs 90 lakh crore had been stolen from India and deposited in foreign banks. He asked if the government had obtained the names from Germany, which offered to share the names of Indians who have deposited money in that country.

BJP members, including ministers like Smriti Irani and Nirmala Sitaraman, continued to protest. At one point, Ansari reminded them that "the ministers do not agitate".

Jaitley said all steps had been taken to get names of people who have deposited money in foreign banks. Of the 628 persons named, each has been investigated, Jaitley added.

Jethmalani is the lawyer for Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal in a defamation case filed by Jaitley over allegations related to the BJP leader's stint as Delhi Cricket Association chief. Jethmalani had recently quizzed Jaitley in the case at the Patiala House Courts here.