On the day the Centre placed the names of 627 account holders of HSBC, Geneva, in sealed covers before the Supreme Court in the black money case, the court said it was pushed into asking for the names by the government.
The court hearing on Wednesday witnessed an unexpected turn when the Bench, led by Chief Justice H.L. Dattu, refused to even open the sealed covers and glance through the names. This, when it had on the previous day insisted that the government produce the list of names.
On Wednesday, the Chief Justice, with the sealed cover before him, proceeded to indicate why the court had taken such a tough stand on Tuesday.
“We would not have asked for the names, but you came out with this application to modify our order, so we said you give us the names first,” the Chief Justice told the AG.
“You would not have wasted your time and we would not have wasted our time if you had taken the hint from Mr. Ram Jethmalani (petitioner in the black money case) when he made some sarcastic comments about your application on the first day,” CJI Dattu said. Later in the day, Special Investigation Team chief and former apex court judge, Justice (retired) M.B. Shah said there was nothing new in the list of names. He told a TV channel that the names were already known to the SIT and they were the same the government had handed over in June 27, 2014. In fact, he was merely confirming what Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had submitted in the morning before CJI H.L. Dattu’s court.
Justifying its application, the AG clarified that the government was not trying to “hide or save anything”. He said the government’s objective was to “get back the black money for the country” and its only request was that nothing “should be done that will further impede information from these countries”. To this, the Bench shot back: “SIT knows its job”.
The CJI said, “They are not laymen. They are two retired Supreme Court judges.”
