A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on December 7 (Thursday) set aside the interim order of a single judge allowing the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to issue fresh summons to former Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac and the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) as part of its investigation into the case relating to the floating of masala bonds by the KIIFB.
The Bench comprising Justice A. Muhamed Mustaq and Justice Shoba Annamma Eapen passed the order while allowing appeals by Dr. Isaac and KIIFB chief executive officer K.M. Abraham challenging the order of Justice Devan Ramachandran allowing the ED to issue fresh summons to them.
In its interim order, Justice Ramachandran had clarified that the pendency of the writ petitions challenging the ED summons would not stand in the way of the ED issuing fresh summons to any person when the writ petitions challenging the summons issued earlier by the ED came up for hearing.
The Bench pointed out that another single judge, Justice V.G. Arun, had passed a detailed interim order restraining the ED from issuing summons to them, assigning reasons for passing the order. Propriety demands that another single judge could not pass an interim order modifying the earlier detailed interim order given by Justice Arun. Therefore, the order passed by Justice Ramachandran was not legally sustainable.
The court also made it clear that its order would not stand in the way of the ED “canvassing grounds” for assailing the reasons stated in the earlier interim order when the petitions came up for final hearing.
Dr. Isaac submitted that the ED issued two summons to him under provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), the Income Tax Act and the Code of Civil Procedure asking for details of his role in the KIIFB with respect to issuing masala bonds. But the agency had not revealed the nature of the violation.
