Black money case: Centre hands over list of 627 account holders to Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Centre on Wednesday placed a list of names of 627 Indian account holders in HSBC bank, Geneva in black money case before the Supreme Court which asked SIT to go through the list and take appropriate action in accordance with law. A bench headed by Chief Justice H L Dattu did not open the sealed envelope containing the names placed by the Centre and said that it would be opened only by Chairman and the Vice-Chairman of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT). [caption id=“attachment_1778095” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Supreme Court. Reuters image.[/caption] It asked the SIT to submit status report of its probe by November-end. Placing the documents before the bench, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said that details of account holders are of year 2006 which were supplied by the French government to the Centre in 2011. He said that the data was stolen from HSBC bank in Geneva which later reached France from where the government got the information. He said the sealed envelope contained three documents– Government’s correspondence with French government, list of names and a status report. He also informed the court that some people have accepted that they have accounts in foreign banks and have paid tax. The bench, also comprising Justices Ranjana Prakash Desai and Madan B Lokur allowed the Centre to put forth its grievances regarding various treaties with foreign countries before SIT. The bench said that the Chairman and the Vice Chairman of SIT are former Supreme Court judges and they are not “layman” and they can decide on various issues arising out of black money probe. “We will send the entire list to SIT and they can proceed in accordance with law. It is for them to take care of how to conduct further probe,” the bench said. Meanwhile, the apex court did not allow the plea of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal to provide additional information on the issue to the SIT, saying that it will consider his plea on next date of hearing on December 3. PTI