The Supreme Court asked the central government on Thursday to apprise it of steps taken to implement the recommendations of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on retrieving black money and to curb the menace of unaccounted wealth.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India H L Dattu asked Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to inform the court about the measures taken so far in view of the three reports submitted by the SIT.
“Please tell us what steps have been taken on the reports. The SIT has so far submitted three reports. The Attorney General will tell us on the next date what the Centre has done on the recommendations of the SIT,” said the bench while posting the PIL filed by senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani for further hearing on October 28.
Senior advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for SIT, told the bench that the subsequent report on the progress of investigation would be complete by the month-end and sought its nod to place before the court in October. The bench also accepted his request that the Attorney General be asked to apprise the court of the action taken by the Centre on SIT’s recommendation.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan raised the issue of SIT’s third report and claimed that some portions of it have emerged in newspapers, which made reference to Participatory Notes (P-Notes) for investing around Rs 3 lakh crore in the stock market. P-Notes are instruments issued by registered foreign institutional investors to overseas investors, who wish to invest in the Indian stock markets without registering themselves with market regulator SEBI. Bhushan also sought making the SIT reports public.
However, the bench, which perused the report, said the third report did not seem to contain such information.
Meanwhile, Rohatgi opposed Bhushan’s appearance in the case, questioning his locus standi. Dave also opposed making SIT reports public, saying these reports contained “delicate information” and any direction to reveal the report would affect the interest of the country. The bench then refrained from issuing any directive on disclosure of the SIT reports.