ED should act with utmost fairness, cannot be vindictive: Supreme Court tells agency
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has reprimanded the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for the action it has taken in relation to a money-laundering case and said on Tuesday that the investigation agency should act with utmost fairness and could not afford to be vindictive at any point.
The apex court, which cancelled on Tuesday the ED's arrest of Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, directors of the Gurugram-based realty group M3M, in a money-laundering case, noted that the Bansals had been summoned for a questioning by the ED on June 14 but were arrested in a second case that had been registered against them by the ED on the same day, reports NDTV.
"Every action of the ED is expected to be transparent, above board and conforming to pristine standards of fair play in action," the apex court said in its judgement, adding that the ED's acts in the current case show that the agency failed to discharge its functions and exercise its powers.
"The ED is not expected to be vindictive in its conduct and must be seen to be acting with utmost probity and with the highest degree of dispassion and fairness. The failure of the accused to respond to questions put to them could not be sufficient grounds for arrest by the ED," said the judges.
They also said that the ED had to find specific, acceptable reasons to believe the accused to be guilty of an offence under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Mere non-cooperation to the summons of the ED would not suffice to arrest an accused and the ED need not expect an admission of guilt by the person summoned for interrogation.
The ED had arrested the Bansals in a case of alleged bribery against Sudhir Parmar, a former special judge for the ED, and his nephew Roop Kumar Bansal, who is also director of M3M. The agency had said that there was 'reliable information' regarding Parmar showing favouritism towards Roop Kumar Bansal and Basant Bansal. It had summoned Basant and Pankaj Bansal as a part of the investigation of the case and arrested them.
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Bridge portion collapses on Jammu outskirts; 3-4 labourers feared trapped, 1 rescued
Jammu (PTI): A portion of a small bridge collapsed in the Bantalab area on the outskirts of Jammu city on Friday, trapping at least three to four labourers under the debris, while one injured worker was rescued, official sources said.
Authorities have closed the road link following the collapse of the portion of the bridge.
The incident occurred when labourers were carrying out repair work on a retaining wall near the bridge that was damaged in last year's flash floods, the sources said.
According to the sources, a section of the bridge suddenly gave way, burying workers engaged at the site under the rubble.
Police, Army and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams launched rescue operations to extricate those buried under the debris. They pulled out one injured labourer and shifted him to a hospital, the sources said.
Family members of the labourers present at the site said around six workers engaged at the site at the time of the incident came under the debris when the structure collapsed. The family members said while two of the labourers managed to escape, four got trapped.
The sources said those trapped included the husband of a woman labourer, a mason, an unmarried labourer and a relative of the contractor.
There was no official confirmation on the exact number of persons trapped under the debris till the filing of this report.
The rescue operations are ongoing.
