Money Trail In Gold Smuggling Case: Kerala HC Reserves Order On Maintainability Of Plea Filed By CM's PS CM Raveendran Against ED Summons

The Kerala High Court on Wednesday reserved orders on maintainability of the petition filed by Kerala Chief Minister's additional private secretary, CM Raveendran, seeking to restrain the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) from detaining him beyond a reasonable time in connection with the probe into the money trail in the Gold Smuggling case. A Single Bench of Justice VG Arun said that he will consider the arguments set forth by both the parties and pass an order accordingly. During the course of hearing, the Judge had remarked that he may be "stepping beyond" his jurisdiction in assuming that Raveendran will be detained for an unreasonable amount of time by the agency. This was after the State counsel, Senior Advocate SV Raju pointed out that there was no material to indicate that the State will harass the Petitioner. Background In his plea, Raveendran claimed that the agency had failed to 'judiciously exercise' its power under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) inasmuch it failed to consider his medical condition and continued to issue him summons, one after the other. "Therefore, interference of this court is necessary in the facts and circumstances of the case, in as much as there is breach of the protection of law guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution," he said. The agency had challenged the maintainability of the proceedings, stating that only summons has been issued in the case and the petition is filed at a highly premature stage. SV Raju referred to various precedents on this point and argued that a High Court should refrain from interfering with the course of investigation. Issue of Maintainability The state counsel referred to the Supreme Court's verdict in Union of India & Anr. v. Kunisetty Satyanarayana, to contend that invocation of Court's writ jurisdiction at this stage is premature. In this case, the Top Court had held, "The reason why ordinarily a writ petition should not be entertained against a mere show-cause notice or charge-sheet is that at that stage the writ petition may be held to be premature. A mere charge-sheet or show-cause notice does not give rise to any cause of action, because it does not amount to an adverse order which affects the rights of any party unless the same has been issued by a person having no jurisdiction to do so. It is quite possible that after considering the reply to the show-cause notice or after holding an enquiry the authority concerned may drop the proceedings and/or hold that the charges are not established. It is well settled that a writ lies when some right of any party is infringed. A mere show-cause notice or charge-sheet does not infringe the right of any one." Referring to Dukhishyam Benupani, Asstt. v. Arun Kumar Bajoria, the Senior Advocate stressed that "Such kind of supervision on the enquiry or investigation under a statute is uncalled for. We have no doubt that such type of interference would impede the even course of enquiry or investigation into the serious allegations now pending…It is not the function of the court to monitor investigation processes so long as such investigation does not transgress any provision of law. It must be left to the investigating agency to decide the venue, the timings and the questions and the manner of putting such questions to persons involved in such offences." He further argued that the agency is empowered under Section 50 of the PMLA to issue summons and mere issue of summons does not make a person an accused. Raju quoted from the decision in Virbhadra Singh & Anr v. Enforcement Directorate & Anr., "The powers conferred on the enforcement officers for purposes of complete and effective investigation include the power to summon and examine "any person". The law declares that every such person who is summoned is bound to state the truth. At the time of such investigative process, the person summoned is not an accused. Mere registration of ECIR does not make a person an accused." "He cannot come to court and say that summons can't be issued or I can't be called for questioning," Raju added. Lastly, he submitted that no right of the Petitioner had been infringed to enable him to move an Article 226 petition. Relying on Poolpandi, Etc. v. Superintendent, Central Excise, the Senior Advocate submitted, "We do not find any force in the arguments of Mr. Salve and Mr. Lalit that if a person is called away from his own house and questioned in the atmosphere of the customs office without the assistance of his lawyer or his friends his constitutional right under Article 21 is violated. The argument proceeds thus: if the person who is used to certain comforts and convenience is asked to come by himself to the Department for answering question it amounts to mental torture. We are unable to agree. It is true that large majority of persons connected with illegal trade and evasion of ...

Money Trail In Gold Smuggling Case: Kerala HC Reserves Order On Maintainability Of Plea Filed By CM's PS CM Raveendran Against ED Summons

Akshita Saxena

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