On Friday, the Supreme Court also gave a notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) regarding a petition submitted by Chaitanya Baghel, the son of the former Chhattisgarh chief minister, Bhupesh Baghel, who wanted his arrest in the purported 2,000 crore Chhattisgarh liquor scam to be challenged. The highest court asked the ED to reply in the next 10 days and ordered the case to be revisited after 2 weeks.
Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi explained that the case presents serious legal issues concerning the interpretation of the Section 193 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and not just the reasons of arrest. The bench noted, more than the fact of the arrest, this petition is about the legality of proceeding with the investigations and postponement of the trial procedure without the due sanction of the judiciary. It is an important question, which should be investigated.
In the CrPC, Section 193, a sessions court is not allowed to take cognizance of an offence without receiving a pre-authorisation by a magistrate. The petition submitted by Baghel held that the actions of the ED, i.e. the investigation continuance and a subsequent arrest, were made without the required judicial sanction, which made the whole process illegal and ab initio.
The plea also argued that procedural violations of this nature go to the core of the due process and as such the arrest was illegal. It also challenged the so-called overreaching of the ED to engage in investigations that it claimed to have made after the filing of the charge sheet in the liquor scam case.
Chhattisgarh has made headlines in its political and legal circles after the case, which is between an alleged multi-crore liquor trade and an excise based corruption. The case is about to push the limits of the investigative authority in the CrPC with the Supreme Court intervention and may be used to influence the state liquor scam investigation currently underway in ED.
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