NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court (SC) today transferred to itself all pending Delhi High Court (HC) cases related to the adjudication of the Enforcement Directorate's (
ED) power to arrest under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (
PMLA), including the INX Media case related to
Karti Chidambaram. At the same time, the
SC extended interim relief granted to Karti by the Delhi HC, to until March 26.
An SC bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra extended the interim relief for Karti - from possible arrest by the ED - which was earlier today extended by two days by the Delhi HC.
The apex court's decision came after the
CBI and the ED petitioned the SC challenging the Delhi HC decision to grant interim relief to Karti, from possible arrest by the ED in the INX case which is to do with alleged money laundering by Karti. The two agencies said in their plea to the top court that Karti, a son of senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram, "abused" the law to get relief from the Delhi HC.
The two agencies detailed detailed what they called a “gross abuse of process of law”and how pieces in a maze were made to fall into place, setting the stage for relief.
The probe agencies said much before Karti moved the SC with a writ petition questioning the ED’s power to summon and arrest, another petition had raised similar issues before the Delhi HC, in which a bench of Justices S Muralidhar and I S Mehta had on February 19 granted bail to a person booked under PMLA and referred the issue to a larger bench, despite the fact that three HCs, including Delhi HC, had earlier ruled that the ED had the power to arrest.
Sensing relief,
Karti immediately moved an application in the
SC seeking stay on PMLA proceedings against him. When the court refused to grant relief on an interim application, Karti withdrew it to file a writ petition.
