No Illegality: High Court Dismisses Punjab AAP MLA Jaswant Singh's Plea Challenging His Arrest By ED

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has dismissed Aam Admi Party (AAP) Punjab MLA Jaswant Singh's plea challenging his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

The Court rejected the contention that the material in possession against him, including the memo of arrest and the grounds of arrest had been sent to the Adjudicating Authority two days after the arrest whereas it should have been sent immediately.

Justice Anupinder Singh Grewal and Justice Kirti Singh said that under Section 19 (2) of PMLA it is nowhere specified that the material should be sent on the day of arrest as the term used is "immediately after arrest".

"...it is not specified that information has to be sent on the day the arrest is effected. Therefore, we do not find any illegality in the same being sent to the Adjudicating Authority a day after. Even if it has been sent after 02 days, it could not be said that the provisions of Section 19(2) of the PMLA have not been complied with," the bench opined.

The Court referred to Apex Court's decision in Ram Kishor  Arora Vs. Directorate of Enforcement (supra) where the expression "as soon as possible" in relation to the communication of the grounds of arrest was interpreted  to be within 24 hours of the arrest, however the bench said that, "but there is no such mandate for sending the material to the Adjudicating Authority the same day or within 24 hours. Therefore, it is difficult for this court to arrive at the conclusion that sending material in possession to the Adjudicating Authority after a day or two would not be a sufficient compliance of Section 19(2) of the PMLA."

The Court was hearing AAP MLA's plea challenging his arrest by ED. Jaswant Singh was booked under PMLA for allegedly being a director and guarantor of a company M/s TCL, which had obtained loan and credit facilities of over Rs.46 crores.

The amount is alleged to have been diverted to other companies, contrary to the terms and conditions of extending the credit facilities. A sum of Rs.3.12 crores is also stated to have been diverted into the personal account of the AAP leader.

The account of M/s TCL was declared as fraud on 09.02.2018 on the basis of forensic audit report, and the matter was reported to RBI. The petitioner had been issued summons to join investigation on several occasions but he did not appear before the investigating agency. Singh was arrested by ED in November, 2023.

After hearing the submissions, the Court rejected the contention that summons had not been issued to Singh.

The bench highlighted that "the written grounds of arrest were served to him as is borne out by his signatures appended thereupon and available on the record. We are therefore satisfied that there is substantive compliance of Section 19(1) of the PMLA."

It added that, the Supreme Court in Ram Kishor Arora v. Directorate of Enforcement (supra), while considering the judgments in the cases of Pankaj Bansal Vs. Union of India and others (supra) and V. Senthil Balaii Vs. State and others (supra) had opined that if the written grounds of arrest have been communicated to the accused and signed by him, it would be sufficient compliance of Section 19(1) of the PMLA and Article 22(1) of the Constitution of India.

In the light of the above, the Court held that "the arrest of the petitioner is in consonance with Section 19 (1) of the PMLA and we do not find any manifest illegality in the orders of remand and subsequent proceedings."

Consequently the plea was dismissed.

Sr. Advocates Randeep S. Rai, Anand Chhibber, Vikram Chaudhari for the petitioner.

Satyapal Jain, Addl. Solicitor General of India with Lokesh Narang, Senior Panel counsel for UOI.

Title: Jaswant Singh v. UOI & Anr.

2024 LiveLaw (PH) 182

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