Delhi HC seeks ED's stand on plea by D K Shivakumar against money laundering probe
New Delhi, Nov 2: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought the Enforcement Directorate's stand on Karnataka Congress leader DK Shivakumar's plea challenging a money laundering probe initiated against him by the agency.
A bench of justices Mukta Gupta and Anish Dayal issued a notice on the MLA's petition which also assails the constitutional validity of the inclusion of the offence pertaining to disproportionate assets under the Prevention of Corruption Act as a "scheduled act" under the Prevention of Money Laundering (PML) Act.
The petitioner, represented by senior advocate Kapil Sibal, asserted that the Enforcement Directorate's investigation in the present instance, pursuant to a case registered in 2020, cannot be sustained as it reinvestigates the offence which it has already investigated in a previous case lodged in 2018 and filed a complaint.
Sibal argued that there can be no case for the offence of money laundering on allegations of disproportionate assets.
"Once you have come to the conclusion that the assets are disproportionate to the known sources of income, there cannot be money laundering after that. There cannot be as a matter of law," he said.
"In the previous prosecution, they have investigated this very thing. Now that the elections are near, they have started this process before the elections and he should be arrested," Sibal said.
In the plea filed by advocates Mayank Jain, Parmatma Singh and Madhur Jain, the petitioner submitted that the second set of proceedings is a "complete abuse of process of law and malafide exercise of powers" and also violates the constitutional provisions relating to double jeopardy.
"The entire aspect of disproportionate assets allegedly acquired by the petitioner when he was minister/MLA in the state of Karnataka was thoroughly investigated by the respondent in the first ECIR (Enforcement Case Information Report) and thus, the initiation of separate proceedings on the same set of facts and ingredients of the offence is impermissible in law and amounts to malafide exercise of power by the respondent," the plea said.
"The impugned ECIR/18/HIU/2020 is lodged on the same set of facts which were already investigated by the respondent in the previous ECIR/04/HIU/2018...," it said.
The commencement of fresh proceedings under the PML Act on identical facts and covering the same period is "directly infringing the rights guaranteed under the Constitution more particularly Article 20(2) and Article 21...", the plea said.
"Furthermore, the inclusion of Section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act in the Schedule of PML Act is ultra vires the Constitution as the ingredients of the offence under the said provision is same as the ingredients required to attract the offence under Section 3 of the PML Act," it stated.
The plea submitted that Section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act is a complete code which envisages the aspect of laundering of ill-gotten wealth by a public servant in the form of assets and there cannot be any further activity of laundering the proceeds again.
It is also alleged that the Delhi office of Enforcement Directorate has no territorial jurisdiction to conduct the present investigation and summon the petitioner who is a permanent resident of Bengaluru.
The matter would be heard next on December 15.
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Jitan Ram Manjhi's video triggers fresh 'vote chori' row in Bihar
Patna (PTI): A row has erupted in Bihar over a video in which Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi has purportedly spoken of having "helped" a candidate who was trailing by a narrow margin in an assembly poll.
The video, which seems to have been shot in Manjhi's Lok Sabha constituency of Gaya, has been shared by the opposition RJD-Congress combine, which was drubbed in the recently held elections, as "proof of vote chori" by the BJP-led NDA.
Manjhi, however, said the video was tampered with and shared on social media.
The former Bihar chief minister, who heads the Hindustani Awam Morcha, can be heard speaking of an incident involving Tikari assembly segment, which his party's candidate Anil Kumar had won in 2020 but lost to RJD in the assembly polls held last month.
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Speaking in the local dialect Magahi, the octogenarian can be heard saying, "the candidate was trailing by 2,700 votes in the 2020 assembly polls. He called me up, and I telephoned the official concerned. Finally, he was declared the winner".
PTI could not independently verify the authenticity of the video.
"This time, the candidate lost by 1,600 votes. But instead of contacting me, he chose to concede defeat. The then DM of Gaya, who is now posted in Tripura, telephoned me to enquire what went wrong this time. I could have done nothing when the candidate chose to return home without contacting me", Manjhi can be heard as saying in the video.
The RJD, which may have wrested Tikari but has suffered a crash in its tally to only 25 from 75 five years ago, shared the video on its official X handle, claiming it as "the truth of the artificial popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi".
The opposition party alleged that Modi, aided by the Election Commission, had made in the recent elections, "an unsuccessful attempt at political assassination of our young and revolutionary leader Tejashwi Yadav".
Bihar Congress spokesman Asit Nath Tiwari echoed the sentiments and alleged, "Union home minister was all fire and brimstone inside Parliament recently while reacting to allegations of vote theft. Now, the confession of his cabinet colleague suggest that what is taking place is not vote chori but vote dacoity".
However, Manjhi came out with an angry post on his X handle claiming "a video of mine has been tampered with and shared on social media by those who think they can defame a son of a Musahar (a Mahadalit community)"
"I want to tell all such people that Manjhi has now become a brand. He is not going to be scared of anyone", added the Union minister.
When Bihar minister and former state BJP president Dilip Jaiswal was asked about the controversy, he said, "I have seen the unedited video. Manjhi was speaking about counting of votes having been stalled for several hours in 2020, after his candidate was trailing in the penultimate round by a small margin. After counting of votes was over, the candidate was declared".
