Excise policy case: Sanjay Singh moves Delhi HC against his arrest, ED remand
New Delhi, Oct 13: AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh on Friday moved the Delhi High Court challenging his arrest and remand in connection with a money laundering case being probed by the ED pertaining to the now-scrapped excise policy.
Notably, Special Judge M.K. Nagpal of Rouse Avenue Court on Tuesday had extended Singh's ED custody by three days, which is expiring this day.
Even the high court has agreed to hear Singh's plea on Friday after his lawyer mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula.
Singh has challenged his arrest by and remand to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) saying that the grounds of arrest were not given to him by the financial probe agency.
On Tuesday, the ED had sought his further custody from Judge Nagpal on the grounds that his behaviour was totally non-cooperative with regard to the source of acquisition of some confidential documents of ED pertaining to this case.
Other grounds on which the ED sought his custody were that he refused to acknowledge or sign the Call Detail Record (CDR) of his mobile number in respect to the calls appearing between the said number and the number of co-accused, Amit Arora.
It was further submitted that the digital data of around 200 GB has been recovered during the course of fresh search and the same is yet to be analysed and the task of confrontation of accused with the said digital data is yet not completed.
On the other hand, senior advocate Rebecca John, who argued for Singh, claimed that the ED had no ground for seeking extension of his custody in the case.
"I (Singh) will not plead guilty to your fanciful allegations," she said.
The court had also directed Singh to not speak to media while being produced, saying it creates security problems. The judge also directed journalists not to ask him questions.
The financial probe agency on October 4 arrested Singh after carrying out searches at his residence in the North Avenue area.
According to a top ED officer, Singh was arrested under Sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).