Thaindian News

New Delhi, July 4 (IANS) The Supreme Court, while appointing a Special Investigation Team (SIT) Monday to probe the black money parked by Indian citizens in tax havens abroad, pulled no punches in chiding the government for being evasive and in the denial mode.

While constituting an SIT headed by former Supreme Court judge B.P. Jeevan Reddy, the court said lack of seriousness in the government’s efforts was contrary to the requirements of law and its constitutional obligations.

The apex court bench of Justice B. Sudershan Reddy and Justice S.S. Nijjar, which ordered the setting up of the SIT, said: “We must express our serious reservations about the responses of the Union of India. In the first instance, during the earlier phases of hearing before us, the attempts were clearly evasive, confused or originating in the denial mode.”

Speaking for the bench, Justice Sudershan Reddy said: “It was only upon being repeatedly pressed by us did the Union of India begin to admit that indeed the investigation was proceeding very slowly.”

“It also became clear to us that, in fact, the investigation had completely stalled, in as much as custodial interrogation of Hasan Ali Khan had not even been sought for, even though he was very much residing in India,” he said.

Stashing away of huge unaccounted money in tax havens and the connections of suspected tax evader Hasan Ali Khan with arms dealers have raised questions regarding the sources of the money being unlawful activities.

The court said there was still no evidence of a really serious investigation into these from the national security perspective.

The court noted with concern that during interrogation of Hasan Ali Khan and Kolkata based-businessman Kashinath Tapuria, names of many people, including officials of corporate giants, politically powerful people and international arms dealers, cropped up. So far, no significant attempt has been made to investigate and verify these.

Both Hasan Ali and Tapuria are accused of laundering black money and stashing it away in tax havens abroad.

It appeared that even though his passport was impounded, Hasan Ali was able to secure another passport from Patna, possibly with the help or aid of a politician, the order said.

The order said that the government’s explanation was both unsatisfactory and lacked credibility on the “slowness of the pace of investigation” and why it did not take action that was “feasible and within the ambit of powers of the Enforcement Directorate itself, such as custodial investigation…”

The court also mocked at the government’s repeated insistence that the “matter involves many jurisdictions, across the globe, and a proper investigation could be accomplished only through the concerted efforts by different law enforcement agencies, both within the central government and various state governments”.

“What is important is that the Union of India had obtained knowledge, documents and information that indicated possible connections between Hasan Ali Khan and his alleged co-conspirators and known international arms dealers,” the court said.

“There is still no evidence of a really serious investigation into these other matters from the national security perspective,” the court said.