Terms of reference of Modi govt's SIT on black money has "ignored" crucial directions by Supreme Court

MB Shah, head of SIT

Terms of reference (ToR) for the new special investigation team (SIT) on black money, set by the Narendra Modi government, is learnt to have missed two crucial directions given by the Supreme Court in July 2011. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), in a statement, has said that on page 66 of its judgement, the apex court had ordered that the SIT “must take over the investigation of individuals with bank accounts in Liechtenstein, as disclosed by Germany to India and expeditiously conduct the same”. At the same time, it had added, "The SIT should review concluded matters to assess whether investigations have been thoroughly and properly conducted, if they conclude is there a scope for further investigation”.
The CHRI says, “On May 1 the Government of India had said investigations had been concluded against 18 of the 26 individuals that had bank accounts in Liechtenstein. These names were received from Germany and investigation had concluded in 17 cases. No evidence was found against eight and the investigation had been concluded against them…" It insists, "Technically, the ToR should have included reopening of these cases to assess whether everything was properly done and if there is any need to proceed further.” Signed by Venkatesh Nayak, programme coordinator, CHRI, the statement adds, “The current ToR published in the gazette do not explicitly refer to these two directions.”
Welcoming the setting up of the SIT as “a reversal of previous government policy on this subject”, Nayak says, “The previous Government had opposed this direction despite a clear order from the Supreme Court in 2011.” Headed by Justice (retd) MB Shah with Justice Arijit Pasayat as vice-chair, Nayak regrets, however, “The rest of the members are the same ex-officio senior bureaucrats who were part of the High Level Committee set up by the previous government to look into the cases of persons who were said to have stashed away money in foreign banks abroad.”
“The SIT is an outcome of the directions of the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Ram Jethmalani and Ors. vs Union of India and Ors judgment delivered in July 2011. With the exception of the retired judges and bureaucrats of the finance ministry, all other members are representatives of organisations notified under the Second Schedule of the Right to Information Act, 2005 (RTI Act) which are not required to furnish any information other than that pertaining to allegations of corruption or violation of human rights”, Nayak points out, suggesting, this makes application of the RTI on SIT particularly important, especially when the SIT will be wholly financed by the Government of India.
The whole case, according to CHRI, was born because of an RTI application seeking “to disclose the names of the bank account-holders that Germany handed over to the Central Government”, Nayak says, adding, “The previous government adamantly refused to follow the directions of the court to hand over to the RTI petitioners the names of individuals against whom investigations had been completed wholly or partially.” Only “last month the Government of India handed over two sealed envelopes containing the names of the account-holders to the court”.
While the “court directed that the names be handed over to the petitioners”, the statement regrets, these names “have not been made public by the government, officially till date. There is no reference to this direction in the ToR of the SIT either. The NDA government could change policy in this regard as well and publicise the names contained in the sealed envelopes, as it would only be dutifully following the directions of the court. Such a step would demonstrate the NDA government's commitment to transparency as a real one going beyond mere public relations exercises.”
Pointing out that the case is particularly important for all RTI users and activists who receive rejection orders from Public Information Officers (PIOs) and First Appellate Authorities on the ground that contracts with private parties contain confidentiality clauses and cannot be disclosed under the RTI Act, the statement says, “In this case also the Government of India, under the UPA, refused to make the names of the account-holders public saying that Germany had handed over their names to Indian authorities under a tax agreement that contains a 'confidentiality' clause.”

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog