India | Posted on Mar 12, 2012 at 06:03pm IST
Govt probing allegations against ex-CJI Balakrishnan
New Delhi: The Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that it was probing into the allegations that former Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and his relatives amassed disproportionate assets and sought three weeks to decide about its further course of action against them.
Appearing before a bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar, Attorney General G E Vahanvati gave the Income Tax probe status report to it in a sealed envelop and said the IT department was currently engaged in assessing properties of Balakrishnan's two sons-in-law and brother.
"Real inquiry has been done by the Income Tax Department as it was related to the properties of sons-in-law and brother," Vahanvati said, adding "the issue involved holding of benami property".
The bench after going through the status report asked the government to tell it as to what further action it intended to take on allegations against the former CJI.
"We want to know how much time you need and what steps you want to take," the bench asked.
The law officer then replied that certain further investigation need to be done and sought three weeks more to decide about the action.
The court's direction came during hearing of a Public Interest Litigation filed by civil society Common Cause, which alleged that the ex-CJI and his relative amassed wealth far exceeding their legal income during Balakrishnan's tenure as an apex court's judge.
The PIL sought apex court's direction to the government to take proper action against the ex-CJI, who is presently the chairman of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
Justice Balakrishnan had been elevated as a Supreme Court judge in June 2000 and was appointed the Chief Justice of India on January 14, 2007. He retired on May 12, 2010 after which he was appointed NHRC chairman.
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