Bombay HC to hear plea against ED case, but won’t free Nawab Malik – Times of India

MUMBAI: Observing that issues worth a debate were raised by state minister Nawab Malik against the money laundering case slapped on him by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the Bombay high court admitted his petition but refused his plea for interim release from custody.
The ED had arrested Malik, 62, on February 23 in a money laundering case linked to an alleged land deal with UNtagged ‘global terrorist’ Dawood Ibrahim’s sister in Kurla.
He has been in custody since. Malik had filed a habeas corpus petition, claiming his arrest was “illegal’’, and sought quashing of the ED case, saying his actions could not attract the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). His senior counsel Amit Desai added there could be no retrospective invocation of the criminal law that came into force in July 2005. The alleged Goawala compound deal was between 1999 and 2005.
The HC was not impressed with the contention that Malik’s acts didn’t attract the PMLA. “Process or activity connected with proceeds of crime” is “a wider term” and Malik’s legal contention of “retrospective’’ application of law “prima facie… cannot be accepted at this stage”, the HC said.
“What we prima facie feel is that claiming a property as untainted property is the ob- jectionable act forming part of an offence under section 3 (money laundering) of the Act,” said the bench of Justices P B Varale and S M Modak. But it added: “As certain debatable issues are raised in the petition, including the issue of maintainability, these issues are required to be heard at length. ” The HC did not go into the merits or probe papers and will peruse them when the matter is argued finally.
Malik, through Desai and advocates Taraq Sayed and Kushal Mor, claimed his arrest was “political vendetta” over a 22-year-old “valid transaction’’, and without following due process under the Criminal Procedure Code, only to keep him behind bars.
For the ED, ASG Anil Singh and counsel Hiten Venegaonkar said the land was still in possession of the accused and hence it became a continuing offence under the PMLA. Desai said “possession” as ingredient of offence was introduced in the law in 2013 and “continuing offence” as an “explanation” in 2019.
The HC said Malik has admitted he attended the ED office in response to summons. He was served with an arrest order and the grounds of his arrest were explained. He was remanded in custody by a special PMLA court, pointed out the HC. It found merit in the ASG’s submission that section 19 (power of arrest) under PMLA was “duly followed”.