SC dismisses ED plea to cancel Shivakumar’s bail
The SC strongly rebuked the ED for ‘blindly copy-pasting’ allegations against senior Karnataka Congress leader DK Shivakumar
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday strongly rebuked the Enforcement Directorate for “blindly copy-pasting” allegations against senior Karnataka Congress leader D K Shivakumar from court documents that the agency had earlier filed against ex-finance minister P Chidambaram. Dismissing the ED’S application to cancel the bail granted to Shivakumar by the Delhi High Court a few weeks ago, the Apex Court told Solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, who was appearing for the agency, that this is “not how you treat citizens”.
Justice Nariman also told the SG to “read our judgment on Sabarimala and tell your officials to obey our orders”.
The financial probe agency’s application against Shivakumar had referred to the seven-time Karnataka MLA as a former Home Minister and former Finance minister multiple times while citing how these high offices of the Centre were supposedly abused.
The point came up when Shivakumar’s counsel, Mukul Rohatgi had pointed out that the ED’S Special Leave Petition (SLP) had lifted chunks out of the affidavit filed against Chidambaram. However, this is not the first time that ED prosecutors have been accused of trying to get away with a copypaste job.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court of India on Friday strongly rebuked the Enforcement Directorate for "blindly copy-pasting" allegations against senior Karnataka Congress leader DK Shivakumar from court documents that the agency had earlier filed against ex-finance Minister P Chidambaram.
Dismissing the ED'S application to cancel the bail granted to Shivakumar by the Delhi High Court a few weeks ago, the Apex court also told Solicitor-general Tushar Mehta, who was appearing for the agency, that this is "not how you treat citizens".
Justice Nariman also told the SG to “read our judgement on Sabarimala and tell your officials to obey our orders”.
The financial probe agency's application against Shivakumar had referred to the seven-time Karnataka MLA as a former Home Minister and former Finance Minister multiple times while citing how these high offices of the central government were supposedly abused.
The point came up when
Shivakumar's counsel, Mukul Rohatgi had pointed out that the ED'S Special Leave Petition (SLP) had lifted chunks out of the affidavit filed against Chidambaram.
For instance on page "H" of the SLP filed by the ED, the agency says: "The nature of the offence, the brazenness and the impunity with which the high office of the Finance Minister of the country was abused by the accused for personal gains again disentitles him from seeking bail".
This can be seen again on the same page itself when the agency refers to the character, behaviour, means, position and standing of the accused: "The respondent has held high offices of Finance Minister and Home Minister of the country."
However, this is not the first ED prosecutors have been accused of trying to get away with a copy-paste job. Even in earlier high-profile cases, defense counsel has time and again pointed out that the agency reproduces allegations from other agencies in court.
For instance, when Chidambaram had been arrested by the CBI in the INX Media case, senior advocate Kapil Sibal had pointed out a similar pattern several times.
When the ED had filed a formal application to seek Chidambaram's arrest, Sibal had claimed in court that large parts of the application and allegations were taken from the remand applications filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation before then.
In fact, Sibal had pointed out in the courtroom that as far as the ED is concerned, there is no FIR in the agency. The Enforcement Case Information Report that the agency files is an internal document, which is not made available to the accused or the public. This ECIR is usually a reproduction of the FIR registered in the predicate offence, Sibal had pointed out.
Moreover, the ED had also made tall claims about the bribe amount allegedly received by the Chidambarams in the INX case in the courtroom, with the only chargesheet in the case corroborating just Rs 9.96 lakh in alleged bribe payments.
Shivakumar was arrested on September 3 by the ED in connection with a moneylaundering case based on a chargesheet filed by the I-T department, alleging his links to hawala transactions.