The Calcutta High Court has said in very clear words that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) officers were not police officers and that the probe conducted by the former would be termed as an ‘inquiry,’ not an ‘investigation’.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Ananya Bandyopadhyay have not agreed to the point that the single-judge had no jurisdiction to protect one Menka Gambhir from the summons issued to her by the Assistant Director of the ED as the case did not involve any kind of police inaction.
The judges while giving the order referred to the verdict by Supreme Court in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary case where the top court had upheld the validity of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The bench said the jurisdiction of Single-Judge has been questioned on the ground that the present matter falls under the category of police inaction, but such a plea cannot be accepted in view of the fact that Supreme Court in the matter of Vijay Madanlal Choudhary has settled that the process envisaged by Section 50 of the PMLA is in nature of inquiry against the proceeds of crime and is not ‘investigation’ in strict sense of the term for initiating prosecution and the authorities under the PMLA are not police officers as such.
A petition filed by the ED challenging orders of a single-judge was disposed by the judges, who granted protection to Gambhir, a Thailand national, after he was issued summon by the assistant director of the ED.
The single-judge, while quashing the summons had asked Gambhir to appear in the zonal office of the ED in Kolkata. It had also ordered the ED not to take any coercive action against her.
As per the case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in November 2020 had lodged a First Information Report (FIR) in case of theft and illegal excavation of coal against few people.
The CBI in its FIR, did not name Gambhir. When the ED filed an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), the name of Gambhir was still not there, but in August 2022,asking her to appear.
The Division Bench did not go into the various aspects of this case, as Gambhir had already appeared before the ED pursuant to the single-judge’s orders.
The Bench disposed of the plea, noting that the other aspects have become infructuous and academic.