Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Tuesday expressed that it did not find any fault with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) action in arresting Enforcement Directorate (ED) officer Sandeep Singh in an alleged corruption case.
The court noted that the CBI had caught Singh red handed while accepting a bribe and hence the Class I officer was aware as to why he was arrested. “This is when you (Singh) are caught red handed in an ACB trap. You know what you are arrested for,” a bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande said while expressing it was not inclined to grant relief in the plea filed by Singh’s wife, Divya Singh, challenging his arrest.
Divya Singh Had filed a petition, through advocate Sujay Kantawala, alleging that they were not informed about grounds of arrest “in writing”. Kantawala argued that the central agency did not follow the provisions of law amd pointed out a Supreme Court judgement which emphasised that the accused must be informed about the grounds of arrest.
The court, however, after going through the arrest memo remarked that it mentioned the grounds of arrest and it specifically states that the same was communicated to Singh in vernacular language too. The court further states that the apex court judgment, cited by Kantawala, did not specify that the grounds of arrest must be communicated in writing.
“When the Supreme Court said, the accused should be informed of grounds of arrest, no where it said it must be communicated in writing. In that case (before the SC) proforma (of arrest memo) was left blank. Here in proforma they have given grounds of arrest and made to understand grounds in vernacular language,” the bench remarked, adding: “We do not find any fault with this,”
On instructions, Kantawala withdrew the petition.
CBI, through advocate Shriram Shirsat, opposed the plea contending that the grounds of the officer’s arrest were communicated to the couple, besides to immediate supervisory officer Naveen Rana. Therefore, there has been “no violation of any law / rule” in Singh’s arrest.
On August 7, Singh was arrested from Delhi based on a complaint filed by Mumbai-based jeweller Vipul Thakker. The businessman alleged that Singh, an assistant director with the ED, demanded Rs20 lakh for not arresting his son and then he started harassing the family. Singh was brought to Mumbai the next day on transit remand.
