The Supreme Court on Thursday granted a major relief to Karti Chidambaram by directing the Delhi High Court Chief Justice to set up a Bench to decide on his plea for protection against arrest by the Enforcement Directorate in the INX Media bribery case. Wasting no time, Karti’s lawyers moved the HC, which will hear his plea on Friday. Karti is presently into CBI custody and his five-day remand will expire on Friday.
Karti’s lawyers — senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Manu Singhvi —expressed apprehension that based on the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) registered against Karti in the INX Media case, they feared that the ED might try to arrest him. They requested the Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra to allow them to withdraw their petition for protection against arrest from the SC so that they could file a similar petition in the Delhi High Court.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the ED, objected to the plea claiming that no ordinary criminal will get such treatment and the correct course of action available to any accused is to approach the High Court with an anticipatory bail petition.
The Bench, also comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud asked Mehta to show a single High Court order which said that based on a ECIR the ED can arrest a person.
The ASG said an ECIR is an internal document which is a starting point for issue of summons, followed by search, seizure, attachment and finally arrest. Even in the absence of a predicate offence or registration of a FIR, based on credible information and a serious money trail, an accused can be arrested. Following this statement, Sibal requested the bench to consider granting them interim protection till they approach the Delhi HC.
Mehta insisted that the court cannot pass such an order and protect the accused in a proceeding where the validity of CBI’s look Out Notice is under challenge. The law officer further maintained that the offences probed by the ED and the CBI stand on a different footing, denying claims of Sibal that both emanate from same offence. At one stage, Sibal got furious and said, “The ASG cannot dictate to the court.” This offended the Bench which shot back at Sibal for using such language. “Why should you (Sibal) remind us of our responsibility. We take exception to what you said,” the Bench said, forcing Sibal to apologise.