ED Given 'Drastic Powers', Needs To Be 'Reined In': Harish Salve In Supreme Court
'These are drastic powers given to the ED. If Lordships do not rein them in, no one is safe in this country,' says Salve.
The Enforcement Directorate has been given enormous powers, and if not reined in, "no one will be safe", Senior Advocate Harish Salve told the Supreme Court, Bar and Bench reported.
Salve, along with Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, was arguing on behalf of the owners of the M3M real estate group.
A top court bench of Justices AS Bopanna and MM Sundresh was hearing challenges to an order by the Delhi High Court that refused to interfere with the arrest of M3M’s Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal in an alleged money laundering and bribery case.
"These are drastic powers given to the ED. If Lordships do not rein them in, no one is safe in this country," Salve said, according to the Bar and Bench. "See how the arrest was done. They were cooperating. Arrest was in violation of my rights, then surely this Court can ... These powers need to be reined in. 14 days they have been inside."
The Bansals, who were arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on June 14 and sent to five-day custody by a special court in Panchkula, contended that their arrest circumvented a high court order granting them protection from coercive action in another money laundering case.
The money laundering case pertains to a Haryana Police Anti-Corruption Bureau FIR filed in April against Sudhir Parmar, a former special judge for ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation, who was posted in Panchkula, his nephew, and a third M3M group director, Roop Kumar Bansal.
According to the FIR, the ED said reliable information was received that Parmar was showing 'favouritism' to the accused, namely Roop Kumar Bansal, his brother Basant Bansal, and IREO owner Lalit Goyal, in the criminal cases of the ED and other cases of the CBI pending against them in his court.
Parmar was suspended by the Punjab and Haryana High Court after the registration of the ACB case.
The ED has said it has collected "incriminating evidence such as bank statements and money trail, etc. with respect to the allegations in the FIR before making the (latest) arrests".
(With inputs from PTI)