Delhi HC dismisses Sanjay Singh’s plea against arrest in excise policy case

Opposing Singh's plea, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju appearing for the ED had said that the accused was arrested in accordance with law, and that his plea was not maintainable.

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed AAP Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh’s plea challenging his arrest and remand in connection with a case pertaining to the now-scrapped excise policy, calling it premature.

Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma pronounced the order after having reserved it on Thursday. On Thursday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had told the High Court that a clear-cut case was made out against Singh.

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Opposing Singh’s plea, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju appearing for the ED had said that the accused was arrested in accordance with law, and that his plea was not maintainable.

The ASG said that Singh;s plea was a bail application in the guise of a writ petition. On Tuesday, Singh told the High Court that the law against money laundering cannot become an instrument of oppression. Senior advocate Vikram Choudhari had submitted that his arrest was illegal, malicious and a case of perversion of power.

On October 13, the High Court had sought the ED’s response on Singh’s plea and had issued notice to the financial probe agency. Special Judge MK Nagpal of Rouse Avenue Court had, the same day, sent Singh to 14 days’ judicial custody in the case.

Singh has challenged his arrest by and remand to the ED saying that the grounds of arrest were not given to him by the financial probe agency. On October 10, the ED had sought his further custody from Judge Nagpal on the grounds that his behaviour was totally non-cooperative with regard to the source of acquisition of some confidential documents of the ED pertaining to this case.

The other grounds on which the ED sought Singh’s custody were that he refused to acknowledge or sign the Call Detail Record (CDR) of his mobile number in respect to the calls appearing between the said number and the number of the co-accused, Amit Arora.

It was further submitted that the digital data of around 200 GB had been recovered during the course of the fresh search and the same is yet to be analysed and the task of confrontation of the accused with the said digital data is not completed. On the other hand, senior advocate Rebecca John, who argued for Singh, claimed that the ED had no grounds for seeking extension of his custody in the case.

The financial probe agency on October 4 arrested Singh after carrying out searches at his residence in the North Avenue area.