A Special Bench of the Supreme Court on Friday refused to intervene in a plea by former Jharkhand Chief minister Hemant Soren challenging his arrest on money laundering charges in a land scam case, asking him to try his luck in the Jharkhand High Court.
“Why don’t you go to the High Court. It is a constitutional court. The High Courts are open to everyone… Once we permit you to come directly here, we will have to permit everybody,” Justice Sanjiv Khanna told senior advocates Kapil Sibal and A.M. Singhvi, appearing for Mr. Soren.
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The Bench, also comprising Justices M.M. Sundresh and Bela M. Trivedi, requested the High Court to consider and decide Mr. Soren’s petition expeditiously.
Mr. Sibal alleged the Centre was “trying to topple the government” in Jharkhand.
“There are matters which you have directly entertained. My Lords should be consistent … You see, there are situations and then there are situations,” Mr. Sibal emphasised.
Mr. Singhvi said the Supreme Court had concurrent jurisdiction with the High Court. Discretion lay with the Supreme Court whether or not to entertain cases.
Justice Khanna said he and his Associate Judges on the Bench were of the consistent view that petitioners ought to adhere to the tiers of appeal and not jump the queue to come directly to the Supreme Court.
“Please go to the High Court… We have to do this in a consistent manner,” Justice Khanna said.
When Mr. Sibal asked the Bench to give the High Court a time line to complete the hearing, Justice Khanna said he did not want to “control” the High Court.
Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, for the Enforcement Directorate (ED), said Mr. Soren had filed an “identical petition” in the High Court.
“The fact of the matter is the High Court is hearing his petition,” Mr. Raju addressed the three-judge Bench. He remarked that the jail had been converted to a five-star hotel.
The court, in its order, noted how Mr. Soren had, on his own initiative, withdrawn his writ petition challenging provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) from the Supreme Court while “seeking liberty to approach the High Court for the same set of reliefs” on September 18, 2023.
The ED arrested Mr. Soren under the PMLA on January 31 after he submitted his resignation as Chief Minister.
‘Misuse of powers by ED’
Mr. Sibal mentioned that the case of arrest of Mr. Soren again highlighted the misuse of powers by the ED owing to the ambiguity about the actual intent of Section 19 (procedure for arrest) of the PMLA.
Section 19 only said the agency needed to “inform” the accused about the grounds of arrest.
A judgment by a Division Bench of the Supreme Court had recently held that ED needed to provide the accused with a written copy of his grounds of arrest only within a “reasonable period”, ie, 24 hours of arrest.
This verdict had come amidst debate that non-communication of the grounds of arrest was a violation of Article 22(1) of the Constitution. The Article upholds the fundamental right of any person who is in custody to be informed as to why he has been arrested.
A Special Bench had been reviewing a Supreme Court judgment of 2022, which upheld core PMLA amendments. The petitioners in the review had argued that these amendments had bestowed unbridled powers to arrest, summon, and raid persons.
A seven-judge Bench of the top court has also been constituted to examine the introduction of these amendments into the PMLA through the Money Bill route, by circumventing the Rajya Sabha, in violation of Article 110 of the Constitution.
