MHC reserves orders in HCP filed by Senthilbalaji's wife

CHENNAI: After seven hours of intense final arguments by a battery of senior lawyers, the Madras High Court on Tuesday reserved the orders in the Habeas Corpus Petition (HCP) filed by state minister Senthilbalaji's wife Megala.

The HCP case was heard by the division bench of the Madras High Court (MHC) comprising Justice Nisha Banu and Justice Bharatha Chakravathy.

After hearing the final arguments, the bench reserved the case for final orders and directed the counsels to submit written arguments on Wednesday.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta for Enforcement Directorate (ED) said that the 15-day period of interrogation is not just the right of prosecution but the right of complainants who have lost their money in the cash for jobs scam in which alleged money laundering has happened between Senthilbalaji and his associates.

The present HCP is not maintainable and highlighted the limitation of the HCP.

He further advanced with considering this petition, once a judicial mind is applied and found that the custody is not unauthorised custody, unless that judicial order is challenged, the custody would not be illegal.

Mehta said reiterating that the accused Senthilbalaji was arrested by ED as there was good reasons to believe that money laundering has occured and submitted that bank deposits in the accounts of minister and his relatives showed unaccounted money transaction.

As Senthilbalaji failed to acknowledge the arrrest memo, his brother Ashok and relatives were informed through SMS and e-mails and the evidences were submitted before the HC and the sessions court, the SG explained wondering the need for HCP as the accused is now in juduicial custody and wondered how the judicial custody can be termed as illegal detention without challenging the judicial remand imposed by the competent special court judge.

If a person is convinced that he is in illegal custody, why would he file a bail application, the SG wondered.

However, Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi appeared for Senthilbalaji and said that not subjecting Senthilbalaji to the custodial interrogation does not mean that the world will end, ED can still continue with their investigation.

Senior counsel NR Elango reiterated that the state police rules and CRPC procedures were not followed by the ED and termed the detention as illegal and violation of personal liberty guaranteed by the constitution.

In the present case, ED has not established the absolute necessity to arrest, it should necessarily follow section 41A before resorting to arrest.

NR Elango said that ED officials do not have any such power. No such power has been given by the Parliament consciously to an officer of ED under the PMLA, courts cannot confer such power on them.

Additional Solicitor General AR.L. Sundaresan said there is a pleading on the side of ED dispting the arguments of the petitioner.

Responding Tushar Mehta submitted the relevant sections that empowers ED to arrest a person and recalled the custodial interrogation to ED in PMLA case related to former minister P Chidambaram.

SG also said that ED is not seeking custody before MHC but seeking the exclusion of the hospitalisation period from the custody.