The Delhi High Court sought response of the Centre and the Enforcement Directorate (Representational)
The Delhi High Court today sought response of the government and the Enforcement Directorate or ED on businessman Moin Akhtar Qureshi's plea challenging his arrest in a money-laundering case. A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Nazmi Waziri issued notice to the government and the ED, asking them to file the reply within five days.
Meat exporter Mr Qureshi was arrested on August 25 and sent to a five-day custody of the ED by a trial court the next day for thorough investigation in the case against him and others.
During the hearing, advocate RK Handoo, appearing for Mr Qureshi, said he has been illegally detained by the ED. He claimed Mr Qureshi had been directly arrested when he was called for questioning and was not informed about the grounds of arrest.
Central government standing counsel Anil Soni, who also appeared for the ED, said there was due compliance of the Constitution mandate regarding informing a person about his arrest.
The bench, however, said a person cannot be taken into custody without telling him the grounds and giving him an effective legal aid.
"Information is not just to make a person read the grounds of arrest. You have to give him a copy of it," the bench said and asked the Centre and ED to show the official records pertaining to the arrest on the next date of hearing on September 13.
The agency had told the trial court that "the witnesses have confirmed in their statements that they have delivered crores of rupees for Qureshi and his associates through his employees and one of the witnesses has stated that nearly Rs 1.75 crore have been exported by the accused from him and his friend in lieu of the help provided to him in a CBI case."
It had also alleged that Mr Qureshi was involved in hawala transactions through Delhi hawala operators Parvez Ali of Turkman Gate and South Delhi Money Changer in Greater Kailash Part-1, owned by DS Anand.