Bringing back offshore black money within 150 days can be an uphill task

On May, the Supreme Court had directed the Centre to issue a notification setting up the SIT within three weeks, and today's Cabinet decision appears to be consequent to that directive.  The deadline was going to end on Thursday.

The Supreme Court had appointed retired Justice M B Shah as the chairman of SIT and retired Justice Arijit Pasayat as the deputy chairman.  Justice Pasayat comes in place of retired Justice B P Jeevan Reddy who was appointed on July 4, 2011, but had expressed his unwillingness to continue due to personal reasons.

However, whether the SIT will be able to bring back the hoarded black money is a moot point. Several experts believe that the money that goes out of India through dubious channels, return back in the form of investments at different levels.

These experts suggest that tough measures need to be taken against generation of black money inside the country. SIT can be successful only in cases where the legal measures would apply, but preventing the generation of black money on a large scale needs tough policy measures.