In an election year, the issue of black money is back on the political agenda with a bang. The Supreme Court on Wednesday knocked off the Centre’s challenge to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the apex court in July 2011, to track down black money accounts in foreign banks. The court said it had no faith in Government’s agencies to carry out the task and regretted that the Centre had not made any serious effort to bring back black money.
The Centre argued that since there was an institutional framework to track down black money, the court should not replace it with a SIT, headed by a former Supreme Court judge. Another objection cited by Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran related to operational difficulties as foreign banks and Governments were bound by sovereign agreement that did not permit them to disclose information to anybody other than the Government.
But the court was not willing to entrust the Centre with this task going by the past failure. The Bench headed by Justice Hl Dattu said, “Even if you (the Centre) have taken steps or have an agency, this court being a constitutional court, will ignore your argument because we have no faith in your organisation. We want a person who will really react to this situation.”
The July 4, 2011 order, it said, served the national economic interest as the court was genuinely concerned over thousands of crores of rupees stashed abroad by Indians in foreign banks.
“This court wants black money trashed in foreign banks to be accounted for. This court took up cudgels in an area where you (Centre) have failed,” said the Bench, also comprising Justices Ranjana Desai and Madan B lokur.
When the court specifically wished to know what action the Centre took since the pronouncement of the July 2011 order, Parasaran shared details of investigation carried out against stud farm owner Hasan Ali Khan, alleged to have siphoned off 8 billion US$. The court pointed out that since 1947, no serious effort was made by the Centre to bring black money back into the country’s economy that could have brought more revenue besides leading to tax cuts.
It lauded the effort by noted jurist and MP Ram Jethmalani, whose petition led to passing of the order. “A Government which could not get this done in 65 years, we will get our men to do it. Since you failed in your attempts, we had to tell you that you people have no mind to do it. So we have a body (SIT) to report to us on steps to track black money, whether it is possible or not.”
The court was not willing to accept that this was a normal matter. Instead, it backed the need for SIT by suggesting it was an “unusual” case. To tackle this, it felt that SIT was absolutely an integral part of the July 2011 order. Finding the application to lack any merits, the court held that ends of justice would be met by dismissing it. The court did not deal with merits of the SIT order as that could only be done in a review petition but the court posted for April 22 an application moved by Jehtmalani for early constitution of SIT.