ED officials are not cops, cannot seek police custody: Senthil Balaji in Supreme Court | India News

Challenging his Enforcement Directorate custody, Tamil Nadu minister V Senthil Balaji on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that ED officials are not police officers and they cannot seek police custody of the accused.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Balaji, contended before a bench of Justices A S Bopanna and M M Sundresh that the apex court in its ruling held that anti-money laundering officials are not police officers and on line of custom officials they can arrest accused but cannot seek police custody.
Balaji and his wife Megala approached the court after facing a setback in Madras High Court which refused to grant them relief. The whole controversy in the case revolves around two questions – whether ED is entitled for police custody of an accused in money laundering case and whether time spent by accused for medical treatment in police custody be excluded. “The SC has authoritatively interpreted and explained the object, scheme and ambit of powers under the PMLA in its decision in Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary where it is categorically held that the officers of the ED are not police officers. This finding is based on the larger overall finding that the object of the Act is not penal but regulatory in nature, and that the Act only empowers the ED to conduct an inquiry and not an ‘investigation’ as understood under the provisions of the CrPC. Once ED officers have been held not to be police officers, there is no question of them seeking custody under Section 167 CrPC, which provision is only applicable to an officer in charge of a police station or police officer,” the petition, filed by Megala. said.

“The question of period of police custody under Section 167 of CrPC is a settled law which has been laid down by SC in CBI Vs. Anupam Kulkarni case and consistently followed for the last 30 years and it is that police custody under Section 167 of can only be for the first 15 days of remand and thereafter it can only be judicial custody,” the petition said.