SC bench refers Centre's review plea on black money probe to larger bench

The Supreme Court today referred the issue of the maintainability of the review petition filed by the Centre challenging an earlier order of the court setting up Special Investigating Team (SIT) to probe black money case to a larger bench after the two-judge bench gave a split verdict.

The two-judges bench of Justices Altamas Kabir and S S Nijjar has directed the registry to place the case file before Chief Justice S H Kapadia who will constitute an appropriate bench.

Justice Nijjar was member of the bench along with Justice B Sudarshan Reddy (retired) who directed the setting up of a 12-member SIT under the supervision of two retired Supreme Court judges.

In July, the Supreme Court recast a high-level committee set up by the government earlier to track black money stashed away abroad. Annoyed by the inaction on the part of the committee, the apex court ordered the setting up of an SIT and made ex-SC judges B P Jeevan Reddy and M B Shah as its chairman and vice-chairman, respectively.

The centre felt the SC order went against its privileges and wanted the decision of the Supreme Court for handing over the investigation to SIT be withdrawn.

The government filed a review petition in the Supreme Court praying it to reconsider its July order.