In a major embarrassment to the UPA government, the Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected its plea to recall its order for setting up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe all cases of black money and said it had to step in as for over six decades the government failed to bring back the money stashed in foreign banks.
“Let us see if the SIT will do things which this country is dreaming of,” a three-judge bench headed by Justice H L Dattu observed.
The court dismissed the Centre’s plea and pulled it up for its reluctance to accept the SIT headed by two retired SC judges. The court said its two-judge bench, in its July 4, 2011, order for setting up of the SIT, felt that “no effort was made to bring back money stashed in foreign banks”, which could have been accounted for and pumped into the “mainstream of the economy”.
“It was the feeling of this court that no effort was made to bring back the money stashed in foreign banks and no effort was made to disclose the names of those whose money was lying in the foreign banks. If the money had been brought back the economy of the country would have gone up. Per capita income would have gone up. Income tax rate... would have been reduced,” the bench observed.