Govt to challenge SC’s black money order

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is known to have held several rounds of meetings on the subject with top law officers as well as former Law Minister Veerappa Moily.

The draft is awaiting final approval of the incumbent Law Minister Salman Khursheed and is likely to be filed within the next few days.

The Government’s intervention,first reported by The Indian Express,is likely to raise important issues of separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary and the limits of the jurisdiction of courts. It will lean on recent Supreme Court rulings including observations of Justice Markandey Katju during hearings in a case on college

ragging where the doctrine of separation of powers between the executive,the legislature and the judiciary were debated at length.

Moily,who handed over charge of the Law Ministry yesterday,told The Indian Express: “The Finance Ministry wanted the order to be challenged and a series of meetings have been held to finalise the draft. The law officers have decided to challenge the order on all issues raised though the final decision will be that of the new Law Minister.” Significantly,the Finance Ministry’s move follows interventions and objections brought before it by the two departments most seriously affected by the investigative powers sought to be given to the retired judges who will head the SIT.

Enforcement Director Arun Mathur,for one,is understood to have submitted a point-by-point rebuttal to the observations of the apex court on their handling of the Hassan Ali case which has been severely criticised by Justice Sudershan Reddy and Justice Surinder Singh Nijjar in the July 4 order.

Asking for the order to be challenged by the Centre,the ED chief is understood to have suggested that the government’s counsel,Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium,may have overstepped his brief while arguing the case. This is because the order states that the government counsel has submitted that,“in principle (the respondents) have no objections whatsoever against the main submissions of the petitioner.”

Subramanium is understood to also have been part of the early consultations in the Finance Ministry before he submitted his resignation last week. Interestingly,during the meetings,he is said to have also protested against the order saying his views were not fairly projected by the Supreme Court judges. He could,however,not be contacted.

Besides the ED,officials of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) have also represented to the Law Ministry that if implemented,the order on setting up of the SIT under retired judges would create huge administrative and legal problems for them.

The CBDT has pointed out that the scheme of the order for retired judges to supervise their countrywide investigations was simply “untenable”’ and that it would impinge on taxpayers’ right to litigate since lower courts were hardly likely to overturn orders passed by former apex court judges.

The Supreme Court Bench has asked for “compliance reports” on their July 4 order to be filed in court on a date after August 15.

Govt objects to:

*Getting Director of IB and head of RAW ,two extremely sensitive positions,to report to judges/retired judges.

*SIT’s sweeping mandate to investigate,initiate proceedings,prosecute cases related to black money

*No timeframe specified

*Mandate to initiate further investigations into already chargesheeted cases