The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to place before it in a sealed cover all six reports of the Multi-Agency Group (MAG) constituted to probe the Panama papers leak case.
The direction came after the Centre told a Bench that the Multi-Agency Group had completed the sixth report of its ongoing probe and the government was prepared to place all reports before the court.
“We direct the Union of India to file all six reports in a sealed cover within four weeks,” the Bench also comprising Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and M.M. Shantanagoudar said.
The Centre had constituted the Multi-Agency Group consisting of officers of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Enforcement Directorate and the Financial Intelligence Unit to investigate the Panama case.
Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the Centre, told the court that the Bench should first go through reports of the MAG and thereafter decide whether it could be shared with the petitioner or not.
The submission by the SG came after petitioner-advocate M.L. Sharma said the report should also be given to him so that he could argue the matter further.
Mr. Sharma argued that the government agencies were not investigating this case properly and they had concealed material facts from the court.
To this, the Bench said, “How can you say that they are not doing it [probe]? They have said they are investigating the matter and when a stand is taken by respondents [Centre, RBI and others] that they are investigating, how can we say anything at this stage?”
