ED required to furnish grounds of arrest to accused in writing, says SC, dismisses Centre's review plea

The top court had come down heavily on the ED and said it is not expected to be 'vindictive' in its conduct and must act with utmost probity and fairness.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea by the Union government seeking review of its judgment, which made it mandatory for the Enforcement Directorate to furnish in written form grounds of arrest to accused in money laundering cases.

A bench of Justices A S Bopanna and Sanjay Kumar, in an order passed on March 20, also rejected the Centre’s contention for oral hearing in the matter. 

“We have carefully gone through the review petitions and the connected papers. We do not find any error, much less apparent, in the order impugned, warranting its reconsideration. The review petitions are dismissed accordingly,” the bench said.

In October 2023, the Supreme Court had said that Enforcement Directorate should maintain stringent standards of probity and not be vindictive in its functioning.

It also declared the Enforcement Directorate must disclose grounds of arrest to accused.

"To give true meaning and purpose to the constitutional and the statutory mandate of Section 19(1) of the Act of 2002 of informing the arrested person of the grounds of arrest, we hold that it would be necessary, henceforth, that a copy of such written grounds of arrest is furnished to the arrested person as a matter of course and without exception," the bench had said.

The court had then granted bail to Basant Bansal and Pankaj Bansal, directors of Gurugram-based realty group M3M, in a money laundering case.

The bench had said ED’s investigating officer merely read out the grounds of arrest, which does not fulfil the mandate of Article 22(1) of Constitution and Section 19(1) of the PMLA.