This came as a group of petitioners led by Ram Jethmalani took umbrage to the UPA government giving a political colour to the issue of “vital national interest”.
The Supreme Court on Monday rolled till July 20 the hearing of a public interest litigation seeking retrieval of Rs70 trillion black money allegedly stacked by Indians in foreign banks.
This came as a group of petitioners led by parliamentarian and former Union minister Ram Jethmalani took umbrage to the United Progressive Alliance government giving a political colour to an issue of “vital national interest”.
Despite having assured the court that it would file an affidavit within 48 hours, when the PIL first came up for hearing on April 22, it filed its response only two days back.
The court told the government to file its rejoinder to the petitioners’ contentions before the next hearing, when either the government remains at the helm of affairs or a new alliance takes over after the general elections.
The petitioners’ counsel Anil Babu Divan said his clients were independent Indian citizens.
Divan sought to rubbish the government contention of political motive behind the petition and linking it to BJP leader LK Advani’s campaign, stressing on retrieval of a huge amount of money if the National Democratic Alliance comes to power.
Divan made a submission to a bench headed by chief justice KG Balakrishnan, on illegal money stashed in foreign banks and referred to statements of national security adviser MK Narayanan at a conference on security in Munich, Germany, on February 11, 2008, when he reportedly said “isolated instances of terrorist outfits manipulating the stock market to raise funds have been reported”. He wondered why, when the income-tax authorities raised a demand of Rs71,848 crore against Pune-based businessman Hasan Ali Khan, the source of such a large amount of money wasn’t investigated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
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