NEW DELHI: A Delhi court recently pulled up Enforcement Directorate for making a person an accused in a money laundering case in which he was earlier cited as a witness. It called the situation “distasteful”.
The court of additional sessions judge Dheeraj Mor of Patiala House Courts granted bail to the person and stated, “In the instant case, there is a very unpleasant situation wherein one investigating officer chose to cite the applicant as a witness and the next opted to arrest him based upon exactly the same evidence available on record.In these circumstances, it is apparent that one of the investigating officers was/is wrong and either acted upon considerations extraneous to law for reasons to be ascertained or he was incompetent to comprehend the facts of the case in proper perspective.”
Mangelal Sunil Agarwal got bail in a case related to the alleged siphoning of funds amounting to Rs 18.8 crore. The agency, in Oct 2022, filed a chargesheet in the case, naming eight people as accused. Agarwal was cited as a witness then. In Aug this year, the agency filed another chargesheet naming Agarwal as an accused.
The judge, in an order dated Aug 31, observed, “The hallmark of investigation is its objectivity. Subjective interpretation of investigating officer must be deprecated as it would make a supposed objective investigation dependent upon his uncontrolled whims and fancies, who has been conferred extreme power of arrest that leads to curtailing the liberty of an individual.”
Such incongruities are “disturbing,” the court stated.
The court asked the ED director to conduct an inquiry against the two investigating officers and ordered the agency to furnish a report explaining the procedure followed by its officers while deciding to arrest a person. “The inquiry report be filed within a month from today with a finding if any one of them faulted in his duties and what action, if any, is taken against the erring official. In case the opposite views of both of them are found to be justifiable, though it doesn’t appeal to common sense, it be clarified as to how to reconcile with this distasteful situation,” it ordered.
The court further said that “while an investigating officer has the power to arrest or not arrest any person, the said power cannot be exercised in an arbitrary manner.”
“After arresting the applicant on the same evidence that was available with the investigating officer and the court at the time of filing of the criminal prosecution complaint, the investigating agency has been trying to collect additional evidence against him by evaluating his mobile data and e-mails with a despairing hope to hit anything relevant in the dark. That is putting the cart ahead of the horse and nothing more, but an attempt to justify the arrest,” it added.
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