Punjab and Haryana High Court sets aside arrest, remand orders against Haryana ex-MLA Dilbag Singh

Saurabh Malik

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Chandigarh, February 8

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has set aside arrest orders, arrest memos and remand orders passed by Gurugram courts under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against Yamunanagar’s ex-MLA Dilbag Singh and another person.

The two have been ordered to be released forthwith, unless their incarceration was required in any other case.

The directions came as Justice Vikas Bahl of the high court allowed the petitions filed against the Union of India and another respondent by Dilbag Singh and Kulwinder Singh through senior advocate Chetan Mittal and other counsel.

Justice Bahl’s Bench, during the course of hearing, was told that as many as eight FIRs were registered at a police station in Yamunanagar. But it was not in dispute that both the petitioners till date had not been made accused in the FIRs.

In his 111-page order, Justice Bahl held the order of arrest, arrest memo and the remand order dated January 9 to be illegal and against law. The subsequent order of remand and other consequential orders were also held liable to be set aside.

Justice Bahl asserted both the petitions deserved to be allowed and the impugned orders deserved to be set aside following non-application of mind and non-recording of compliance of the conditions/stipulations contained in Section 19 of the PMLA Act by the special court while passing the impugned orders.

“The Special Court has not made any observations with respect to the due compliance by the authority of Section 19(1). There is no reference in the remand order to state that the court had perused the order, if any, recording the reason to believe that the petitioners are guilty of the offence punishable under the 2002 Act or the grounds of arrest in writing and had satisfied itself that the arresting officer, on the basis of material in his possession, had reason to believe that the petitioners were guilty of the offence punishable under the Act.” Justice Bahl observed.

The Bench asserted that it was apparent that the authorities illegally confined/unlawfully restrained the petitioners from January 4 to January 8 and “in effect” arrested them on January 4 itself. But they were not produced before the court concerned within 24 hours from the date of their actual arrest. The authorities also did not comply with the other conditions mentioned in Sections 19(1), 19(2), 19(3). “Thus, arrest and all subsequent orders including remand orders are illegal and against law and deserve to be set aside.”