Directorate Of Enforcement Has Misused Its Power: Bombay HC Grants Bail To Person Booked Under PMLA

The Court said that it appears that the powers have been exercised based on whims, caprice or fancy of the investigating officer.

The Court was hearing a Writ Petition filed by the Petitioner challenging his arrest, detention and remand by the Directorate of Enforcement in a PMLA case.

The bench of Justice Revati Mohite Dere and Justice Prithviraj K Chavan observed, “Prima facie, we find that the respondent No.1 has misused it’s power of arrest which are not in consonance with the observations made by the Supreme Court in the case of Vijay Mandanlal Choudhary (supra) as well as in the case of Arvind Kejriwal (supra).”

Senior Advocate Pasbola appeared for the Petitioner and SPP Sandesh Patil appeared for the Respondent.

Brief Facts-

In the present case, an FIR was registered under IPC Sections 420 r/w 34 and a charge sheet followed. A complaint was filed with the Directorate of Enforcement against the Board of Directors of Chhatrapati Shivaji Education Society regarding alleged offences leading to the registration of an ECIR. The original FIR was compounded in Lok Adalat, but the compounding was later stayed by Court order. Following a raid on the Petitioner’s home, the Petitioner claimed harassment and was later arrested, remanded to Enforcement Directorate custody, and subsequently to judicial custody.

The Court observed, “…do not find any reason as to why and how the petitioner who has neither been named in the F.I.R nor has been charge-sheeted in the scheduled offence came to be arrested after eight years.”

The Court noted that both the documents furnished to the petitioner captioned as “grounds of arrest” and “reasons to believe” are, prima facie, sans application of mind by the Respondent.

The Court mentioned the Supreme Court decision in Arvind Kejriwal Vs. Directorate of Enforcement and quoted, “….The respondent is definitely wrong when it says that because the appellant was evasive in his reply, because he was not cooperating with the investigation, therefore, he was rightly arrested and now should be continued in detention. It cannot be the proposition that only when an accused answers the questions put to him by the investigation agency in the manner in which the investigating agency would like the accused to answer, would mean that the accused is cooperating with the investigation. Further, the respondent cannot justify arrest and continued detention citing evasive reply.”

Accordingly, the Court granted bail to the Petitioner.

Cause Title: Deepak Appasaheb Deshmukh v. Directorate of Enforcement 

Appearance:

Appellant: Senior Advocate Sudeep Pasbola, Advocates Vaibhav Gaikwad, T.S. Mali and Sandeep R. Karnik 

Respondent: SPP Sandesh Patil, APP PP Shinde, Advocates Krishnakant P. Deshmukh and Shubhankar Kulkarni

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