WON’T TAKE ACTION AGAINST PUNE BIZMAN, ED TELLS HC

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court (HC) on Monday adjourned the hearing of the plea filed by Pune businessman Avinash Bhosale and his son Amit challenging the summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) till February 24 after ED gave an oral assurance that it will not take any coercive action against the two. ED had issued summons to the fatherson duo in the ongoing investigation into alleged violation of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). The court directed the duo to cooperate with the probe and appear before ED officials on February 17 as per summons issued by the central agency.

A division bench of justice SS Shinde and justice Manish Pitale, while hearing the petition, was informed by senior counsel Shirish Gupte that his clients were willing to cooperate with ED, but were apprehensive of being arrested by agency officials when they responded to the summons. Hence, the father was seeking directions from the court to ED to refrain from taking coercive action.

However, special counsel for ED Hiten Venegaonkar opposed the plea and said the Bhosales had not responded to the summons and hence the plea should not be allowed. The court observed that as the applicants were willing to cooperate with the probe, there was no hurry for arresting them. Venegaonkar said that if the Bhosales were willing to cooperate and respond to the summons for February 17, ED would not take any coercive action.