In a major relief to the former Haryana Congress MLA Surendra Panwar the Supreme Court has upheld the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in which Panwar’s arrest in a money laundering case was declared illegal.
Rejecting the special leave petition (SLP) filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the court clarified that the High Court’s decision was based only on the legality of the arrest and it would not affect the merits of the case.
Panwar was arrested by the ED on July 20 last year on charges of illegal mining and money laundering. He alleged that after the arrest, he was kept for continuous interrogation for 15 hours.
However, the High Court rejected his arrest on 23 September 2024 and Panwar was released on September 25, ahead of voting of Haryana Assembly Elections which he contested on Congress ticket from Sonipat assembly constituency. Later the ED challenged the High Court’s decision in the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, ED lawyer Zoheb Hussain argued in the Supreme Court that the High Court wrongly recorded that Panwar was questioned continuously for 14 hours and 40 minutes, claiming that Panwar was given a dinner break at night and the agency took care of human rights in the interrogation. However, the Supreme Court rejected this argument of the ED and called the long interrogation inhuman.
Dismissing the Enforcement Directorate (ED)’s plea against the High Court order, the Bench held, “We are not inclined to interfere with the finding of the high court that the arrest of the respondent was illegal.” The High Court’s findings, it said, were only for deciding whether Panwar’s arrest was illegal. “These findings will not affect the merits of the pending complaint under Section 44 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002,” said the Bench in its order on December 2.
The court said the ED’s approach in conducting the probe was a “shocking state of affairs” where a person was virtually forced to make a statement. ED’s counsel Zoheb Hussain said the high court had erred in its finding that Panwar was continuously quizzed for 14.40 hours, pointing to a dinner break during the interrogation. The lawyer said ED in a 2024 circular asked its officials to maintain certain standards of interrogations and to ensure people were not interrogated during late night and in early hours of the day.
On September 29, 2024, the High Court said primarily, as per the grounds of arrest, the allegation(s) against the petitioner pertained to illegal mining or supplying the illegally mined material. Therefore, it said, the foundation of the case was illegal mining whereas the rest of the allegations in all the nine FIRs were peripheral, relatable to illegal mining. “Of course, ‘illegal mining’ is an offence under Section 21 of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 (MMDR Act), but neither ‘illegal mining’ nor the MMDR Act has been included under the schedule attached with the PMLA. In other words, ‘illegal mining’ is not a scheduled offence under the PMLA. Hence, prima facie, petitioner cannot be prosecuted on that count,” said the High Court.
It noted the ED itself said Panwar was issued summons under Section 50 of the PMLA and appeared before the agency at around 11 am in Gurugram on July 19, 2024 and was constantly interrogated till 1.40 a.m. (July 20, 2024) for 14 hours and 40 minutes. The High Court observed the continuous interrogation for over 14 hours “was not heroic” on ED’s part and it was rather against the dignity of a human being. “For future, in view of the mandate under Article 21 of the Constitution, this court is observing that Directorate of Enforcement shall take remedial measures and sensitize the officers to follow some reasonable time limit for investigation in one go against the suspect(s) in such cases,” it said.
Instead of subjecting someone to “unnecessary harassment” for such a long duration, the high court called for a necessary mechanism to carry out a fair investigation of the accused in line with the basic human rights laid down by the United Nations. It said there was no material with the ED to substantiate that petitioner was directly or indirectly involved in any process or activity connected with the proceeds of crime, in any manner or projected it as untainted by any means. Panwar, 55, was taken into custody in the wee hours of July 20, 2024, in Gurugram and produced before a special PMLA court in Ambala which sent him to the custody of the ED till July 29, 2024 in an illegal mining-linked money laundering case.
The agency raided the premises of the former Sonepat MLA in January, 2024, on charges of “large-scale illegal mining” in the Yamunanagar area of the State. The money-laundering case stems from several FIRs registered by the Haryana Police for probing alleged illegal mining of boulders, gravel and sand that took place in the past in Yamunanagar and nearby districts despite a ban imposed by the NGT. The ED is also probing an alleged fraud in the “e-rawana” scheme, an online portal that was introduced by the Haryana government in 2020 to simplify the collection of royalties and taxes and prevent tax evasion in mining areas. According to the ED, the alleged illegal mining generated slush funds of about Rs 400-500 crore over the last few years.
After the Supreme Court’s decision Panwar’s lawyers called it a victory of justice stating that the court’s ruling has proved that the action taken under political pressure cannot last.
