The Supreme Court today granted one week more time to the Centre to set up a special investigation team under its former judge M B Shah to monitor all black money cases as per its direction.
A vacation Bench of Justices B S Chauhan and A K Sikri granted time as the deadline fixed by the apex court for constituting the SIT expired yesterday.
The Bench also directed that all documents relating to black money must be kept in the safe custody of secretary-level officer of revenue department after the petitioner, senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, alleged that some of the “vital” documents were destroyed in a fire at Shastri Bhawan.
Solicitor General Mohan Prasaran, however, refuted Jethmalani’s claim, saying that all documents are kept at North Block and not at Shastri Bhavan.
The apex court had on May 1 directed the Centre to handover within three days all documents and information collected by it in its probe into the cases of alleged stashing of black money at LST Bank in Liechtenstein, Germany, to Jethmalani and others who raised the issue before it.
It had directed the Centre to issue a notification regarding its appointment of SIT within three weeks.
It had appointed its retired judges M B Shah as the Chairman and Arijit Pasayat as the Vice-Chairman of the team for providing guidance and direction in the investigation of all cases of black money in the country and abroad.