Nawab Malik arrested in PMLA case, says 'no fear'; in ED custody till Mar 3

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday arrested Maharashtra Minority Affairs minister Nawab Malik — the NCP leader at the forefront of exposing alleged wrongdoings within the Narcotics Control Bureau's Mumbai office led by Sameer Wankhede — accusing the minister in a money-laundering case related to financial dealings of people linked to the 1993 Mumbai blasts, including underworld gangster Dawood Ibrahim.

While leaders from Maharashtra's coalition government and other opposition leaders from across the country termed ED's action as a vendetta by the BJP-run Union government, details from Malik's remand hearing showed that the minister had been arrested for a property deal that was executed before the money-laundering legislation had even come into force, prompting his lawyer to argue that the agency was illegally applying the criminal law retrospectively.

However, a court in Mumbai went ahead to remand Malik to ED's custody till March 3 — a little over one week — even as the agency insisted on a 14-day remand.

But even as he was being whisked away to court from the ED's office, Malik denied the charges and shouted out to the media: "Will fight and win. Won't bow down," as NCP and Shiv Sena leaders rallied to support him and accuse the Union government of indulging in vendetta politics.

Later on Wednesday evening, Malik tweeted: "Kuchh hi der ki khamoshi hai phir sher aayega... tumhara to sirf waqt hai hamara daur aayega!!" (This silence is short-lived... Noise is coming. The time might be in your favour but my era will be here soon).

Significantly, senior advocate Amit Desai, for Malik, told the court that the alleged property deal was from nearly 20 years ago and while no criminality had been revealed in the alleged deal for all this time, the FIR for the predicate offence was registered just in February this year, following which the ED registered a money-laundering investigation.

"The constitution says there is no retrospectivity in criminal law. You wait for 20 years and then say give me remand for 14 days," Desai said in court.

Interestingly, the ED's action against Malik emanates from the ECIR registered after taking cognizance of an NIA case filed just weeks ago. The NIA case was related to larger dealings of Dawood Ibrahim and his aides, which comprised the network of his operatives, often known as D-Company.

Based on this, the ED initiated its probe and even conducted raids on February 15, saying that it was probing property deals and hawala transactions linked to Dawood's aides. These raids were at the premises of Haseena Parkar, Dawood's late sister, Salim Qureshi, a relative of gangster Chhota Shakeel and Dawood's brother Iqbal Kaskar, who was arrested by the ED last week in the same case.

Now, the Enforcement Directorate is alleging that a piece of property in Kurla that was acquired by Parkar, was allegedly sold illegally to a company with links to Malik before 2005, at an allegedly undervalued price, to purportedly launder proceeds of crime.

The Additional Solicitor General told the court on Wednesday that the proceeds from this sale never reached the original owner of the property, who the ED claimed had deposed before it that her ancestral property was taken over by Parkar and her men and illegally sold to Malik. However, Malik's lawyers insisted in court that the NIA case based on which ED initiated its probe, was itself very vague and didn't mention any specific predicate offence against Malik. And even if any unauthorised action is found in the alleged property deal, it would mean that Malik was also one of the victims, who was sold the property illegally by someone who did not hold the title for it.

Moreover, Malik submitted before the court that the arrest order issued by the Assistant Director of ED firstly illegally declared him "guilty" without due process and that secondly, the ED's remand application plays fast and loose with the phrase "terror funding" to "create a perception that an elected representative of the State of Maharashtra is involved in anti-national activities".

Further, senior advocate Desai went on to argue that the remand application had no mention of the specific predicate offence, based on which money-laundering allegations are being brought against Malik.

"There has to be some restraint in the language in the remand application. There has to be some court whose doors we can knock. Somewhere the court has to rise above this. This is not a Hindi movie script, this is the court," Desai said, adding: "But the remand is cleverly drafted with half-truths. Where is the predicate offence under PMLA for which this gentleman is sitting here?"

However, the ASG in the case rebutted this by saying that PMLA provides for prosecuting a "continuing offence" under the list of scheduled offences and since the property in question was currently in Malik's possession, the ED was entitled to investigate it for money-laundering.

The political storm kicked up in light of Malik's arrest saw NCP leaders and state government leaders huddle into a meeting even as opposition leaders like TMC's Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal Chief Minister, criticised the BJP-run Union government for going after Malik.