New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday (January 2) pulled up the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and expressed concern in conducting probe, even saying that the agency was virtually forcing a person to make a statement, suggesting a “shocking state of affair.”
The bench of Justices Abhay S. Oka and Augustine George made the remarks while upholding the quashing of the arrest of former Haryana Congress MLA Surendra Panwar by the ED in a money laundering case related to sand mining, reported The Times of India.
After his arrest on July 15, the ED had arrested Panwar at 1:40 am after interrogating him for around 15 hours. Later, the Punjab and Haryana high court had quashed his arrest following which the ED had appealed to the Supreme Court.
Advocate Zoheb Hossain, who represented ED, said that the high court had wrongly recorded that Panwar was interrogated for 14 hours and 40 minutes non-stop. Hossain said that Panwar was given a dinner break during interrogation and the agency has taken steps to ensure that people were not interrogated during the wee hours.
However, the court rejected the ED’s contention and asked that how the agency could torture a person by interrogating him for such a long period without a break.
“As per the case of ED itself, petitioner was issued notice/summons under Section 50 of PMLA [Prevention of Money Laundering Act] and in pursuance thereof, he duly appeared in the Zonal Office of ED at Gurugram on 19.07.2024 at 11:00 a.m and he was constantly interrogated uptill 1:40 a.m (20.07.2024) for 14 hours and 40 minutes, which is not heroic on the part of ED; rather it is against the dignity of a human being,” the Punjab and Haryana high court order had earlier mentioned.
Reiterating the high court’s remarks, the Supreme Court said that it was “inhuman conduct” on part of the ED officers and with their actions, they were forcing the person to make a statement.
The court also said that it was not a case related to terrorist activity but an illegal sand mining case.
The ED had recently issued a circular in which it directed its officials not to interrogate people at late hours or keep them waiting long at its office.
The Supreme Court bench upheld the high court’s order that said that Panwar’s initial arrest as well as grounds of arrest were unsustainable in law.
“To be precise, it would be appreciated if some necessary mechanisms is put in place for fair investigation of the accused as per basic human rights laid down by the United Nations Organisation (UNO), instead of meeting out unnecessary harassment, for such a longer duration at one stretch for a given day,” the high court had earlier said in its order.
