Court reserves order on ED plea to arrest Chidambaram

New Delhi: While a special CBI court here reserved its order on the ED's plea to arrest former Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the INX Media case and take him in for custodial interrogation, special Judge Ajay Kumar Kuhar heard Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta and senior advocate Kapil Sibal argue on some basic issues that arise out of the PMLA legislation.

As Chidambaram was produced in court on Monday, Mehta submitted two separate applications - one seeking permission to arrest the senior Congress leader and another one asking for his police custody. However, appearing for Chidambaram, Sibal argued that the law did not allow further police remand of his client in the INX Media case as the ED's case is not based on a separate and independent transaction. The basic argument from Chidambaram's side was that since he had already been in CBI custody for the full 15 days, the ED cannot seek his further custody in a case that involved that same alleged transaction.

While the SG argued that the PMLA legislation provided for separate and independent prosecution of the predicate offence (corruption in this case) and the money-laundering offence and also recognised them as separate offences; Sibal argued that despite the offences being different, they arose out of the same alleged 'transaction', which is the alleged act of corruption. Sibal cited provisions under the CrPC and Supreme Court judgements to back his argument that his client cannot be further remanded to police custody in so far as the fact that the offence ED is concerned with arises out of the same transaction that the CBI had arrested him for.

SG Mehta stressed that it is not possible to look at these cases in a way where money-laundering is a continuance of the predicate offence, as several steps like concealment of proceeds of crime, usage of them are offences independent of the predicate offence. Moreover, Sibal also argued that the court's earlier order, issuing a production warrant for Chidambaram was not in the right spirit as they were not served notice for arguments. He also moved a plea to recall and cancel the production warrant.

Judge Kuhar said that the order will be pronounced at 4 pm today.