The Supreme Court made it clear to the Centre on Tuesday that it could not take shelter under the confidentiality clause for not disclosing all names of black-money account holders it had received from abroad.
At the outset, Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi told the court, “We (government) are not interested in hiding any information from the court. This government constituted the SIT at the first instance. The government has received 500 names of account holders from different countries like Germany and we have already passed on the names to the SIT. Unless we give a declaration of certificate of confidentiality, we can’t sign the agreement in December. What we are saying is we will disclose those names against whom investigation is completed and prosecution is launched.”
Chief Justice H.L. Dattu, heading a three-judge Bench, told the A-G: “Don’t take shelter under the confidentiality clause. Please don’t give that certificate. This court can say that even if there is a confidentiality clause, still you give us all the names you have received. We don’t want the money which belongs to the people of this country to go abroad. You are now trying to reargue the case, which is impermissible. What is the difficulty in giving the names? Don’t give one, two, or three names of account holders, but give us the entire list supplied to you by foreign countries and we will tell you what you should do… We will ask the investigating agency to complete the probe within a month.”
The CJI refused to accept the A-G’s argument that disclosing the names of those who had legitimate accounts abroad would violate their right to privacy and such names could be revealed only after a prima facie case of tax evasion was made out.
Appearing for the petitioner, Ram Jethmalani, senior counsel Anil Divan submitted that the Centre’s application for modification of the earlier orders was a complete abuse of the process of law. The government was only seeking a review which was not permissible, he said.
Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal, through his counsel Prashant Bhushan, filed an intervention application stating that he had personal knowledge of some of the names having black money stashed in their foreign bank accounts, and was also in possession of the statements made by such persons before Income Tax authorities.
He said during raids of their respective premises, these persons had confessed to having black money in foreign accounts and also disclosed the entire modus operandi as to how ill-gotten money was being transferred from India to their foreign accounts and further, how the money was brought back through hawala transactions.
He said he was placing all such names/information, which he had obtained through a whistle-blower, before the court so that a thorough investigation could be ordered and effective steps taken to check illegal transactions of black money.
The Bench posted the matter for further hearing on Wednesday.
