SC cited wrong case law to justify black money SIT: Govt

Fri Sep 02 2011, 02:25 hrsNew Delhi:

A 209-page compilation of case laws placed on record by the government argues that Justice B Sudershan Reddy may have relied on the wrong case laws to form his decision to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) in the black money case.
In fact, the government says that the “four” precedents cited by Justice Reddy say the exact opposite, and, indeed, reject the idea of courts setting up SITs.

Attorney General G E Vahanvati today told a bench led by Justice Altamas Kabir that the “four” case laws in paragraph 48 of the July 4 order, in fact, contradict Justice Reddy’s decision to form a SIT in the black money case.

The government is seeking a recall of Justice Reddy’s direction to form a SIT which includes as one of its members the chief of the country’s external intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing. All members are supposed to report to two retired Supreme Court judges in their endeavour to investigate and track down all black money transactions and pending cases both in India and abroad.

The bench today reserved for orders the question of maintainability of the recall application.

In paragraph 48, Justice Reddy says there are “many” instances of courts setting up SITs to help them with “very complex” issues. One of the four he cites is the 2G spectrum judgment delivered by Justices GS Singhvi and AK Ganguly in 2011.

Justice Reddy wrote that SITs help courts and the government to “fulfil their constitutional obligations”.

This is what paragraph 48 says: “We note that in many instances, in the past, when issues referred to the Court have been very complex in nature, and yet required the intervention of the Court, Special Investigation Teams have been ordered and constituted in order to enable the Court, the Union of India and/or other organs of the State, to fulfill their constitutional obligations”.

The paragraph further goes on to say: “The following instances may be noted: Vineet Narain versus Union of India (1996), NHRC versus State of Gujarat (2004), Sanjiv Kumar versus State of Haryana (2005) and the Centre for PIL versus Union of India (2011)”.

In the Vineet Narain case, the AG pointed out, the Supreme Court had not even considered forming a SIT. In fact, the three-judge bench of Justices J S Verma, S P Bharucha and S C Sen merely asked the CBI and government agencies to “expedite their action” in public interest.

The 1996 case dealt with the Jain hawala transactions.

Again, in the 2004 order in the NHRC case, the SC dealt with an application alleging that the state government had failed to properly investigate the 2002 Gujarat riots. The application had sought the setting up of a committee to overlook a SIT.

A three-judge bench of Justices Ruma Pal, S B Sinha and S H Kapadia refused the suggestion saying “we are not going to proceed on the basis that the entire investigation machinery in the State has failed”. It then directed the Gujarat government to form a separate cell to exclusively deal with the riots cases.

In the 2005 Sanjiv Kumar case, which dealt with a complaint of large-scale corruption and tampering of records in the selection of 4000 vacancies of JBT teachers in Haryana, a bench of Justices RC Lahoti and Ashok Bhan said it is a “better option” that CBI continue the investigation and threw out a request for an independent probe by a SIT.

“We have given thoughtful consideration to the proposal for entrusting the whole matter to a Commission of Inquiry, assisted by a special investigating task force...but we are of the opinion that the better option is to entrust the matter to investigation by CBI,” Justice Lahoti wrote.

In the 2G scam order, Justice Singhvi’s bench had actually refused persistent demands made for setting up a SIT. Instead, the bench opted for the CBI to continue its investigation under the court’s own eyes.

Writing the judgment, Justice Singhvi observed that “at this stage, we do not consider it necessary to appoint a special team to investigate what the appellants have described as 2G spectrum scam because the Government of India has, keeping in view the law laid down in Vineet Narain case and orders passed in other cases, agreed for a court-monitored investigation”.