The Supreme Court has pulled up the Enforcement Directorate for filing a charge sheet against the Pune-based stud farm owner, Hasan Ali Khan, in a money laundering case without placing it for scrutiny by the High-Level Committee (HLC) constituted by the Centre.
A Bench of Justices B. Sudershan Reddy and S. S. Nijjar faulted the ED also for not informing the court in advance of the filing of the charge sheet in its May 4 status report. Taking a serious view of this lapse, the Bench said any order passed by the special judge, Mumbai, on the charge sheet would be subject to its further directions.
On May 4, the Bench reserved verdict on the petitions filed by the former Union Law Minister, Ram Jethmalani, and others on setting up of a special investigation team (SIT) to track black money cases, even as it was argued that the HLC, set up on April 22, could not be effective.
On Thursday, when Solicitor-General (SG) Gopal Subramaniam gave his written submissions in the case, Justice Reddy asked whether the charge sheet filed against Hasan Ali on May 6 was placed before the HLC. When the SG replied, “certain transactions remained incomplete and that was why it was not mentioned” Justice Reddy said: “We must express our reservations over this. Tell us whether this charge sheet was scrutinised by the HLC appointed by your own government.”
Surprising
When the SG answered in the negative, Justice Reddy said: “We thought that somebody should look into the charge sheet. You don't want us to have a mechanism. When you have constituted a HLC, you don't place the charge sheet before it. We are surprised. You have suggested a mechanism but yet the charge sheet has not been placed before the HLC.”
Justice Reddy told the SG: “We heard the matter on May 4, but there was no mention in the status report that the charge sheet was ready and it was to be filed on May 6. [However] it is obvious that you had the charge sheet on May 4 and chose not to inform us. Why it was not mentioned that the charge sheet is to be filed? Why is it that we were not informed that investigation is complete against Hasan Ali?”
Senior counsel Anil Divan, appearing for the petitioners, said the HLC was not even aware of the charge sheet being filed, and urged the court to suspend the officer concerned for not placing it before the committee.
The SG assured the court that the charge sheet would be scrutinised by the HLC before further orders were passed by the special judge.
Mr. Divan expressed an apprehension that the special judge might not take cognisance of this charge sheet if it was inadequate and sought a direction to restrain him from taking further steps on the charge sheet.
In a brief order, the Bench clarified that the charge sheet filed before the special judge would be subject to further directions issued by this court. The Bench directed that a copy of the 900-page charge sheet be supplied to the petitioner's counsel in 10 days.
