A day after it lashed out at the government for holding a “protective umbrella” for those being probed for stashing black money abroad, the Supreme Court on Wednesday chose not to make public the list submitted to it in a sealed cover by the Centre.
The Centre placed list of around 627 names of Indians having accounts in foreign banks before Supreme Court in the black money case.
The court left it on the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to carry out necessary investigation and evolve a procedure to ensure proper probe into the matter.
A bench led by Chief Justice H L Dattu asked the SIT to verify the list given by the government and submit a status report by end of November. The bench will take up the matter next on December 3.
“Only SIT chairman and vice chairman can open the sealed envelope containing names of account holders… SIT will decide what further action is to be taken on black money issue,” said the bench.
The Attorney General submitted three sets of documents to the apex court. While the document 1 contains names of 627 Indians having accounts in foreign banks, document 2 has overseas accounts details. The third document has details on status of investigations into the black money issues.
The Centre provided the list of people having accounts with HSBC bank in Geneva given by France.
The government also opted not to press its application that sought restrictions over disclosure due to confidentiality clauses in international treaties. It obtained a permission to raise all its arguments in this regard before the SIT.
The Supreme Court had on Tuesday ordered the Centre to disclose to it on Wednesday all the names being investigated for allegedly stashing black money abroad, and questioned why the government was ?holding a protective umbrella for these people?.
Throwing a spanner in the case being heard for the past five years, the bench had directed the government to hand over, in sealed cover, on Wednesday the lists of all the names received from foreign governments, irrespective of the nature of treaties between the countries. The court order came as a surprise since it was hearing a fresh application by the government for, in fact, restricting the disclosure.
?Don?t give us two or three names but all the names. Give us the entire list? whatever you have got from Germany, France, Switzerland and other countries. What you have disclosed could be a tip of the iceberg. This is going to be the first step now ?disclose everything. We can?t leave the issue completely to you (government). It may never happen during our time,? said the bench, also comprising Justices Ranjana P Desai and Madan B Lokur.
The government had on Monday informed the court about three entities ? two individuals and a mining company along with its five directors ? who were being prosecuted under the Income Tax Act for allegedly keeping black money in foreign bank accounts.
