Gautam Khaitan: Centre moves Supreme Court over retrospective applicability of Black Money Act 2016

The Central government has moved the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court’s recent order to stay the proceedings against advocate Gautam Khaitan under the Black Money Act, 2016..The main issue in the matter pertains to the retrospective applicability of the Black Money Act..Khaitan had assailed several sections of the Act before the High Court and had also claimed that the government’s notification that declared the date of enforcement of the Black Money Act as July 1, 2015 was ultra vires the Act itself..The Division Bench of the High Court had, on May 16, stayed the proceedings against Khaitan under the Act, stating that he had made out a good prima facie case for grant of interim stay..Khaitan had submitted in the High Court that the amendment to Section 1(3) to state that the Act would come into force from July 1, 2015, instead of April 1, 2016, was done in exercise of power under Section 86 of the Act. Since Section 86 was yet to be in operation, the Centre could not have exercised power under it..Agreeing with the contention, the High Court had observed,.“Parliament in its wisdom enacted the said Act and expressly provided therein that save as otherwise provided in the said Act, it shall come into force on the 1st day of April, 2016. There is, therefore, no gainsaying the legal position that, the power to make Rules or remove difficulties under the provisions of Sections 85 and 86 of the said Act, could only be exercised by the Central Government, once the said Act came into force on the 1st April, 2016, the date expressly stipulated by Parliament in this behalf, and not prior thereto.”.It had thus held that the Centre could not, prior to the Act coming into force, alter the date on which the enactment came into force by exercising the powers under the Act..The Delhi High Court has retrained the Centre and the Income Tax Department from taking any further action against lawyer Gautam Khaitan under the provisions of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015..This order has now been challenged in Supreme Court..Solicitor General Tushar Mehta mentioned the matter in Supreme Court today before the Vacation Bench of Justices Indira Banerjee and Sanjiv Khanna. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case tomorrow..Read the Order:.Bar & Bench is available on WhatsApp. For real-time updates on stories, click here to subscribe to our WhatsApp.