Just four days after his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Punjab Cabinet Minister Sanjeev Arora alleged before the Punjab and Haryana High Court that he was being portrayed as a “thoroughbred criminal”who is likely to tamper with evidence or flee.
“I am a minister. The transaction (in question) is of 2023-24 when I was nothing, but a businessman. I’m not a person from across the border or into any illegal trade,” senior counsel Puneet Bali argued before Chief Justice’s court, adding that the records were already in the agency’s custody and Arora was no longer a director in the company after entering politics.
Bali mounted a frontal attack on the legality of Arora’s detention before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, alleging that he was effectively confined from 7 am during ED searches but formally shown arrested only at 4 pm after “pre-typed and orchestrated” grounds of arrest were handed over within barely 35 minutes of recording his statement.
Bali further argued that the entire exercise violated constitutional safeguards, the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), and binding Supreme Court precedents.
Calling the remand order “almost identical” to the one deprecated by the Supreme Court, Bali contended that the ED and the remand court failed to satisfy the mandatory safeguards under Section 19 of the PMLA and Section 167 CrPC. The key protections include mandatory written reasons for arrest, immediate notification of grounds to the accused, and production before a magistrate within 24 hours.
“Liberty is taken away like this,” Bali submitted, adding that constitutional courts “will absolutely not tolerate this”.
Referring to the timeline of events, Bali argued that ED officers entered Arora’s official residence at 7 am on May 9 and he was not allowed to leave thereafter.
“The moment you detain a person is the time he’s arrested,” Bali argued, asserting that constitutional protections under Article 21 and the requirement of production before a magistrate within 24 hours could not be defeated by the investigating agency “writing the date and time of their choice in an arrest memo”.
He further claimed the ED itself treated 7 am as the effective time of arrest.
Reading extensively from the Supreme Court’s observations in a matter, Bali argued that the magistrate was under an “abounded duty” to verify compliance with Section 19 of the PMLA and independently assess whether the arrest was lawful.
“The magistrate has to go to its own conscious and judicial function to ensure what they say is right,” Bali submitted. The senior counsel also questioned the feasibility of preparing a 17-page grounds-of-arrest document within 35 minutes after recording Arora’s statement at 3.25 pm. Referring to another Supreme Court ruling, Bali argued that such typed arrest documents appearing within minutes indicated they were “pre-recorded, pre-typed, orchestrated”.
“Please get the best stenographer in the country and tell him to make these grounds of arrest in 35 minutes,” he submitted.
Bali further attacked the substance of the ED allegations relating to alleged bogus GST refunds and exports. He argued that statutory customs records and GST proceedings contradicted the ED’s allegations and should have been examined by the remand court before granting custody.
He told the Bench that the GST refund claim had in fact been rejected and the amount deposited under protest, while appeals remained pending. On allegations regarding exports, Bali asserted that customs authorities had already recorded that exports had indeed taken place, except for a limited dispute involving 62 mobile phones.
Referring to allegations that shell entities and bogus invoices were used, Bali argued the transactions were routed through RTGS and cheque payments and were fully documented. He also pointed to an FIR allegedly lodged by Arora against entities that had “eaten away” GST amounts.
During the hearing, ED counsel Zoheb Hossain objected to some of Bali’s assertions regarding the arrest timeline, terming it “factually incorrect”. The matter will come up for further hearing on Friday. Arora was also represented by advocates Vibhav Jain, Viren Sibal and Jasman Singh Gill, along with Bali.
