Supreme Court Rebukes Enforcement Directorate, Saying It Should Not Be ‘Vindictive’

New Delhi: The Supreme Court cancelled two arrests in a money-laundering case on Tuesday while rebuking the Enforcement Directorate for being vindictive. It said the probe agency must be seen to act with the highest degree of fairness.

The Supreme Court quashed the arrest of  Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, directors of Gurugram-based realty group M3M, in a money laundering case.  The Bansals had approached the court against a Punjab and Haryana High Court order dismissing their plea challenging their arrest

“Every action of the ED is expected to be transparent, above board and conforming to pristine standards of fair play in action,” the Supreme Court said in its judgment, uploaded on Wednesday, NDTV reported.

In this case, the facts demonstrated that the probe agency “failed to discharge its functions and exercise its powers”, said the court.

“ED is not expected to be vindictive in its conduct and must be seen to be acting with utmost probity and with the highest degree of dispassion and fairness,” said the judges, adding that the failure of the accused to respond to questions put to them could not be sufficient grounds for arrest by the Enforcement Directorate.

The Enforcement Directorate had to specifically find a reason to believe that the accused are guilty of an offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. “Mere non-cooperation in response to the summons would not be enough to arrest anyone,” said the apex court.