The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on the timing of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest ahead of the general elections in the excise policy-linked money laundering case.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta told Additional Solicitor General S V Raju “life and liberty are exceedingly important. You can’t deny that.” “The last question is with regard to the timing of the arrest, which they have pointed out, the timing of the arrest, soon before the general elections,” the bench said.
The top court also asked about the long time gap between initiation of adjudication proceedings in the case and the action of arrest, saying the section 8 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) provides a maximum limit of 365 days.
The bench said, ”Mr. Raju, we have some questions, which we would like you to answer, when you make your submissions.
First is without there being any adjudicatory proceedings, can the ED initiate a criminal proceedings in view of several judgements of this court on PMLA.”
The bench also said in this case there are no proceedings of attachments so far and if there are any such proceedings, then the ED will have to show how petitioner (Kejriwal) is connected to it.
The hearing in the matter will continue On Friday.
The ED arrested Kejriwal on March 21, after the Delhi High Court refused to grant him protection from coercive action by the federal anti-money laundering agency. The chief minister is currently lodged in the Tihar jail here under judicial custody.
The top court issued a notice to the ED on April 15 and sought its response to Kejriwal’s plea.
On April 9,the high court had, upheld Kejriwal’s arrest in the money-laundering case, saying there was no illegality about it and that the ED was left with “little option” after he skipped repeated summonses and refused to join the investigation.
The matter pertains to alleged corruption and money laundering in the formulation and execution of the Delhi government’s now-scrapped excise policy for 2021-22.