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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday notified the Madras High Court that it has powers to arrest and detain Tamil Nadu State Minister Senthil Balaji under the Money Laundering Prevention Act. India’s Attorney General Tushar Mehta has presented his report to that effect before Judge C.V. Karthikeyan, who has been appointed as the third judge to hear habeas corpus petition filed by Balaji’s wife, following a split ruling by a judicial panel last week.
Balaji was arrested by the ED last month under the PMLA in a cash-for-jobs scam when he was Minister of Transport in the former AIADMK regime. Mehta said the emergency department should exercise its legal duty. Once he has enough material related to the proceeds of crime, he can arrest a person and seize and confiscate their property.
He said that the investigation was considered after the complaint was submitted, as well as after the arrest. Just because emergency department officers are not police officers, it does not mean that they do not have investigative authority.
In the money laundering case, there was only one offense and the penalty was 7 years RI. Besides, it was a non-bailable offense. Therefore, the executive director has no authority to release the accused. He can only be released by the court. He added that emergency department officers could not be treated as station officers.
Citing the Supreme Court ruling, Mehta said it is the moral duty of the CEO to investigate or cross-examine the accused in a money laundering case. According to the outline of the law, emergency departments are required to collect materials, investigate, search, confiscate and attach the property, besides arresting the person.
Thereafter, if no case is filed against the accused, a Closing Report must be filed. He added that when the executive officer has powers to file the closure report, he certainly has the authority to investigate further.
He said that the procedures during the execution of the arrest were fully followed in this case. Soon after the arrest, Balaji was informed of the reasons for the arrest in the presence of two witnesses, but he refused to receive them. Mehta added that this is a record arranged by the Sessions Judge.
In her temporary order, he said, while the department board allowed Balaji to receive treatment at the private Kufri Hospital, he would remain in judicial custody. Therefore, the ED transferred the Sessions judge and obtained a guardianship order for him.
Before this order was issued, he was transferred to the private hospital. Furthermore, the conditions imposed by the Sessions Judge were unenforceable. Hence, he added, the emergency departments did not implement the order.
He said that one of the conditions imposed by the hearing judge was that the emergency department could question him without impeding his health and treatment. Therefore, the ED obtained the opinion of the Cauvery Hospital doctors, upon which it chose not to cross-examine him there.
Moreover, without obtaining a custodial order, the CEO cannot seek to exclude Senthil Balaji’s treatment period later. Therefore, the CEO obtained a detention order. He added that she had informed the Supreme Court and the Sessions Judge that she could not enforce the arrest order in view of Senthil Balaji’s health condition.
If, he said, the remand order intervened after the Plenipotentiaries were presented, the detention could not be illegal.
Senthil Balaji was subject to a court order for detention, when the CC’s case was filed. Therefore, the current HCP will not lie. The injunction in HCP cannot be questioned. He pointed out that the arrest and pre-trial detention were not challenged before the Court of Appeal.
After Mehta completed his arguments, the judge sent the hearing to July 14 to respond to Chief Counsellor Cain Sibal, who represented the arrested minister.
Meanwhile, the city court on Wednesday extended Senthil Balaji’s remand to judicial custody until July 26.
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