In a significant judgment pronounced the Supreme Court maintained that the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) should furnish the grounds of arrest to the accused in writing at the time of arrest, legal news portal LiveLaw reported.
On Tuesday, October 03, a bench comprising Justices AS Bopanna and Sanjay Kumar stated, “We hold that it would be necessary, henceforth, that a copy of written grounds of arrest is furnished to the arrested person as a matter of course and without exception.”
The judgement comes while setting aside the arrest of Pankaj Bansal and Basant Bansal in the money laundering case against the real estate group M3M. The Court went to the extent of stating that the ED’s conduct “reeks of arbitrariness” and directed the immediate release of both the accused.
Declaring the arrest to be illegal, the bench ordered the immediate release of the accused. Criticising the ED’s approach in the instant case, the bench observed, “This chronology of events speaks volumes and reflects rather poorly, if not negatively, on the ED’s style of functioning”.
“The ED mantled with far-reaching powers, is not expected to be vindictive in its conduct & must be seen to be acting with utmost probity and with the highest degree of dispassion and fairness,” the judgement reads.
The bench also rejected ED’s argument that grounds of arrest need not be informed to the accused in writing. The court holds that written information is necessary to comply with the mandate of Article 22(1) and Section 19 of the PMLA.
