Calcutta High Court asks ED to arrest money laundering accused from the court hall

Kolkata: In a unique order passed last week, the Calcutta High Court ordered the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to arrest the two money laundering accused from the court hall itself.on Thursday while quashing a special court’s orders granting bail to two persons booked in a money laundering case, ordered the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to arrest them from the court hall itself [Enforcement Directorate vs Shailesh Kumar Pandey].

Single-judge Justice Tirthankar Ghosh quashed and set aside an order passed by a special case in releasing the two accused Shailesh Kumar Pandey and Prasenjit Das, both of whom were detained by the ED for their alleged roles in a ₹108-crore scam case.

“Today, it has been informed that the accused persons are present before this Court. Accordingly, the ED is directed to take both the accused persons in custody and produce them before the Special Court by 3 pm advancing their prayers for custody, if required,” the judge ordered.

The bench disposed of a plea filed by the ED challenging orders passed on January 21, by which the special court had cancelled the production warrants and ordered their immediate release.

Advocate Phiroze Edulji, appearing for the ED, contended the special court erred in passing the orders as the agency was yet to ascertain the trail of proceeds of crime in the case. He further said that the agency was yet to figure out who the beneficiaries of the proceeds of crime were and also the role of other accused or suspects in this case.

Edulji pointed out that the special judge held that the production warrant issued against the two accused was an “inadvertent mistake” and, therefore, recalled the same and ordered their release rejecting the prayers of the ED which had sought over 15 days custody of the two men.

On the other hand, the accused argued that the order questioned by the ED was well reasoned and was premised on the verdict of the Supreme Court in the case of Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary vs Union of India.

The High Court noted that the special court in its order relied upon the paragraphs wherein the Supreme Court had drawn an analogy between Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) and a first information report (FIR) in the background of furnishing copy of ECIR to the person apprehending arrest or who is arrested by the ED.

Therefore, the bench quashed the said order.

Advocates Phiroze Edulji and Samrat Goswami appeared for the ED.

Senior Advocates Sekhar Basu and Milon Mukherjee along with advocates Ayan Bhattacharjee, Jakir Hossain, Md. Maqsood Alam, Ahie Arma, Ritu Das and Suman Majumder represented the Accused.

[Read Order]