The Supreme Court on Thursday transferred the case filed by Karti Chidambaram from Delhi High Court to it and protected him from arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) till March 26.
Moving the apex court against the interim protection granted by Delhi HC to Karti on March 9, the ED said that the order was passed despite the question whether a High Court can grant protection to an accused facing arrest in a money laundering case was pending consideration before a Full Bench of the same HC. Interestingly, the bench which passed the order on Karti’s petition had referred the issue of law to the Full Bench on a separate petition on February 19, 2018.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta who appeared for ED submitted that some HCs have taken the view that bail in PMlA cases cannot be granted by a HC in a writ petition proceeding, while others like Delhi HC maintain this is possible. Such a situation was hampering probe by the agency to prosecute accused in high profile cases such as PNB scam, Kingfisher Airlines case among others. Mehta requested Court to lay down the law that will apply to all HCs. The bench directed Delhi HC Registry to transfer even the case referred to a Full Bench for laying the law on this subject.