Hasan Ali chargesheet: why were we kept in dark, SC asks ED

The Supreme Court, miffed that it had to read in the newspapers about a chargesheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate against alleged money laundering kingpin Hasan Ali Khan, on Thursday asked the agency why it was filed without informing the high-powered committee (HPC) set up to supervise the efforts to unearth illicit money stashed abroad.

"Just a week ago, the government told us that it has constituted a 10-member HPC headed by the revenue secretary. Why was the chargesheet not placed for scrutiny before it? If the ED thinks it was not necessary, then what is the utility of the HPC?" asked a bench comprising justices B Sudershan Reddy and S S Nijjar.

After a frenetic consultation with ED officials in court, an embarrassed solicitor general Gopal Subramaniam conceded that the chargesheet was not shown to the HPC, which was constituted on 25 April.

The setting up HPC, which includes the heads of the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Intelligence Bureau, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, and the Central Board of Direct Taxes, was widely seen as a government ploy to pre-empt a court-appointed special investigation team (SIT).

The bench, which has been monitoring the ED probe into Khan's activities and the black money issue in general, referred to the ED's 4 May status report and said, "The ED informed us that the investigations were going on. There was not a word about filing a chargesheet. But two days later, we to our surprise find from the newspapers that a 900-page chargesheet has been filed. Why were we not informed about it when we are monitoring the investigations?"

"We will pass appropriate orders," the bench said, in a cryptic remark that had the government's prosecutors worried.