Dec 05, 2024 10:06 PM IST
The bench decided to continue hearing the case on Friday after ASG SV Raju said ED apprehended that Anil Tuteja would go underground
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) haste to arrest former IAS officer Anil Tuteja in the Chhattisgarh liquor case was “deplorable” and the agency a day to explain what additional material was available to register a fresh case on April 11, just three days after the earlier ED case against Tuteja was quashed by the top court.
Hearing a petition filed by Tuteja and another co-accused Anwar Dhebar challenging their arrest, a bench headed by justice Abhay S Oka said, “It is deplorable. How can you arrest a person in the middle of the night. What is this happening, was it so urgent. You could have called him the next day. He was not some terrorist who would go in with bombs.”
The bench, also comprising justice AG Masih, posted the matter on Friday after additional solicitor general (ASG) SV Raju said, “We apprehended he would go underground as he had been avoiding our notices. I will answer all the queries put to me by the court.”
The top court also told ED to be prepared on the maintainability of the fresh case filed by ED on April 11 this year after the court set aside the entire ED proceedings against Tuteja and other accused on April 8, as the predicate offence was based on Income Tax proceedings, which is not a scheduled offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
ED said that the latest case was based on an FIR lodged by Chhattisgarh police and was based on different charges and evidence.
The court remarked, “After we quashed the first Enforcement Case information Report (ECIR), you (ED) have to show what additional material you had for registering the second ECIR.” Tuteja was arrested on April 20 while Dhebar was detained later on August 8.
Senior advocates Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Siddharth Agarwal appearing for the two accused showed how the two ECIRs were identical. Singhvi said, “In three days, there cannot be any fresh material. This is a shocking case where the second FIR has inherited ‘reason to believe’ from the first FIR which is quashed.”
He further submitted that in cases of arrest, the top court has consistently held through a catena of decisions that the necessity to arrest must exist coupled with the supply of reasons and establishing a nexus between the necessity and reasons based on available material. “This is a clever way to circumvent court orders,” Singhvi said, pointing out that he was arrested by ED on a day when he was called for questioning by state police in which the top court protected him in the eventuality of any arrest.
Tuteja had gone to the anti-corruption bureau (ACB) on April 20 where he appeared for questioning in connection with the same case. While he was still at the ACB office, he received the first ED summon at 12.30 pm even as the time to appear was shown as 12 noon. A little later, a second summon was issued to him to appear that same evening and a posse of ED officers took him straight from the ACB office, interrogated him through the night and arrested him after daybreak on April 21.
The court first noticed these facts while hearing the matter in October, and directed ED to file a response on the “tearing hurry” to arrest Tuteja.
ED claimed that illegal profits worth ₹2,000 crore were earned by a syndicate involving politicians, bureaucrats and private individuals during the period 2019-23 of which Tuteja was an integral part. This money allegedly came through bribes collected from distillers and unaccounted sale of country liquor by state-run liquor vends.
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