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Supreme Court on ED: The Supreme Court on Wednesday took the Enforcement Directorate to task. The Supreme Court has reprimanded ED for keeping the accused in custody without trial. The top court said, no central agency can file a supplementary charge sheet and keep a person in jail without trial.
The Supreme Court has questioned the ED for denying default bail to the accused and filing supplementary charge sheets to keep such people in jail indefinitely.
Notably, the Supreme Court was hearing the default bail plea of Prem Prakash, an alleged aide of former Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren, who was arrested in August 2022.
On which the bench of Justice Sanjeev Khanna and Justice Dipankar Dutta made this comment while objecting to the filing of four supplementary charge sheets by the agency in the money laundering case arising out of alleged illegal mining in Jharkhand.
Justice Khanna told Additional Solicitor-General SV Raju, appearing for the ED, that we are giving you (ED) notice. You cannot arrest a person without completing the investigation as per the law of the case. It is tantamount to detention and affects the liberty of the person. In some cases, we have to solve the problem.
An accused cannot be deprived of the benefit of default bail. Justice Khanna said, the whole purpose of default bail is to prevent you from being arrested till the investigation is completed. Until the investigation of the case is completed, you cannot say that the trial will not start. You cannot continue to file supplementary charge sheets, and a person cannot be put in jail without trial.
Justice Khanna said, the petitioner has been in jail for 18 months and supplementary charge sheets are being filed one after another by the ED and this is what troubles us. When you arrest an accused, the trial must begin. Default bail is the right of the accused and cannot be refused by filing supplementary charge sheet.