Counsel For Accused Cannot Interact Directly With Agencies Or Investigating Officers Unless Court Orders: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court said that the counsel for the accused cannot interact directly with the agencies or Investigating Officers unless and until it is ordered by the Court.

The Court was deciding a Criminal Miscellaneous Bail Application filed by the accused against the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

A Single Bench of Justice Samit Gopal observed, “The investigating agency was duly represented by its Counsel/Standing Counsel right from the first day and were expected to comply with any direction(s) given by the Court. If the rival party needed to demonstrate that the same has not been complied with, the proper forum was to apprise the Court when the matter was next placed. A counsel cannot identify himself with his client. He cannot interact directly with agencies like Investigating Officer, etc. unless and until ordered so by a court particularly with regards to sub judice proceedings. Interacting directly with agencies, Investigating Officers, etc., is not the duty of a counsel appointed by an accused.”

The Bench noted that the action of the counsel for the accused of sending emails directly to the Investigating Officer (IO) is not proper and cannot be appreciated.

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, Advocates Tanveer Ahmad Mir, and Ram M. Kaushik appeared for the Applicant/accused while Senior Advocate Gyan Prakash, Advocates J.P. Mishra and Kuldeep Srivastava appeared for the Opposite Party/ED.

In this case, a Complaint was filed by the ED against the accused under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA). Direction was issued to confiscate the properties of the accused persons. The Court took cognizance upon the same and summoned them vide an Order and hence, the Applicant/accused was in jail since February 2024.

The allegation was that the accused was KMP (Key Managerial Personnel) of a company through associate entities and siphoned off the loans availed by indulging in criminal conspiracy and generated Proceeds of Crime under PMLA. The loss incurred to the Complainant Bank was to the tune of Rs. 2,52,61,46,476/-. As the Applicant was in jail, he sought bail before the High Court.

The High Court in view of the above facts, remarked, “The principle of “bail is a rule and jail is an exception” is being consistently followed and repeatedly being reiterated and reminded by the Apex Court and other Courts.”

The Court said that there are no chances of the accused absconding and hence, it is a fit case for grant of bail.

“Let the applicant- Padam Singhee, be released on bail in the aforesaid case crime number on furnishing a personal bond and two sureties each in the like amount to the satisfaction of the court concerned”, it directed.

With regard to the issue of emails sent by the counsel for the accused to the IO, the Court observed, “Before closing the present matter an important issue which was raised by learned counsel for the Enforcement Directorate with regards to the competency of an Advocate representing the parties to interact directly with the investigating agency with regards to the matter pending in the court in which the said agency is duly represented by its counsel needs to be considered and decided.”

The Court emphasised that, sending e-mails and reminding the authorities of the Order(s) of Court and requesting them to comply with it, is not in the realm of the duties of the counsel(s) appearing in the case.

“He is to represent him in Court only. His work is to assist the Court. An order passed by a Court is expected to be followed and complied with by parties and if any party has any grievance against the other, the proper procedure is to apprise the Court about it”, it concluded.

Accordingly, the High Court disposed of the Application and granted bail to the accused.

Cause Title- Padam Singhee v. Directorate of Enforcement (Neutral Citation: 2024:AHC:17866)

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