Senior Advocate Harish Salve appearing before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, on behalf of directors of realty group M3M, launched a scathing attack on the arrest powers of the Enforcement Directorate. Salve pleaded before the top court that ED had been given drastic power and if not reined in by the courts, no one will be safe in the country.

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Harish Salve along with Senior Advocate and former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, was representing Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, directors of Delhi NCR-based M3M real estate developers, in a case filed by them.

Salve argued that ED had proceeded to arrest the directors when they had been cooperating. Arresting while the accused are cooperating points towards powers that need to be reined in, he added.

According to BarAndBench, Salve argued, "These are drastic powers given to the ED. If Lordships do not rein them in, no one is safe in this country. See how the arrest was done. They were cooperating. The arrest was in violation of my rights then surely this Court can... These powers need to be reined in. 14 days they have been inside."

There was not even a whisper of any violation of anticipatory bail conditions to prompt the ED to act in such a manner, he added.

The ED is investigating charges of bribes being paid by the two to Special CBI/ED Judge Sudhir Parmar. The ED is alleging that Sudhir Parwas was favouring the accused in the ED’s case against IREO real estate developers.

The M3M directors were arrested by the ED on June 14 in a money laundering case. The case, in which they were arrested, pertains to a Haryana anti-corruption bureau (ACB) FIR filed in April against the former special court judge, his nephew and a third M3M group director Roop Kumar Bansal.

Earlier, on June 1, the ED had carried out raids against the M3M promoters and some others in another money laundering case linked to the IREO group and its promoter Lalit Goyal.

Subsequently, the agency arrested Roop Kumar Bansal and the two other directors, Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, obtained interim protection from arrest till July 5 from the Delhi High Court in this case. However, later they were arrested in the ACB case linked money laundering case, in which, the Delhi HC had refused to grant any relief.

Subsequently, the two directors moved Supreme Court.

Salve argued that ED had arrested the accused when Punjab and Haryana HC had granted them protection against arrest. He also submitted that ED had made no mention of any violations of the terms of the protection order.

The M3M directors have now informed the top court that they will be moving to the jurisdictional court of Punjab and Haryana HC to seek relief.

First Published:Jul 4, 2023 8:23 PM IST