NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday granted one more week to the Centre to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by its former Judge M B Shah to monitor all black money cases as per its direction.
A Vacation Bench of Justice B S Chauhan and Justice A K Sikri granted the extra time, as the earlier deadline fixed by the court for constituting the SIT had expired on Thursday.
Senior advocate and petitioner in the case Ram Jethmalani sought to object to the Centre’s plea saying its intentions were questionable and it could claim no relief.
On this, Justice Chauhan said the government was not seeking any modification of the order, but only one more week’s time. Jethmalani said the compliance of the May 1 order did not require any serious consideration by the government at the highest level as it has only to issue a notification as directed by the court twice -- on July 4, 2011 and May 1, 2014.
The court also directed the government to keep all papers relating to black money in the safe custody of an officer, not below the rank of Revenue Secretary.
The court directive came as Jethmalani, referring to the fire at Shastri Bhawan in Delhi on Thursday, expressed concern about the safety of documents related to black money. He alleged that some of the “vital” documents were destroyed in the fire. Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran told the court that all such documents were in custody of the Ministry of Finance in North Block.
The apex court had on May 1 directed the Centre to handover within three days all documents and information collected by it, in its probe in cases of alleged stashing of black money at LST bank in Liechtenstein, Germany, to Jethmalani and others, who raised the issue before it.
It had directed the Centre to issue a notification regarding their appointment of the SIT within three weeks. It had appointed retired judges M B Shah as chairman and Arijit Pasayat as vice chairman of the SIT for providing guidance and direction in the investigation of all cases related to black money.
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