New Delhi: The Delhi High Court granted Thursday more time to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to file an affidavit regarding the maintainability of Robert Vadra’s plea seeking quashing of a money laundering case in which he was questioned by the probe agency.
A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Vinod Goel directed the ED to file the response within a week and listed the matter for further hearing July 18. The court asked Vadra and his close aide Manoj Arora to file their rejoinder to the ED’s affidavit in two weeks thereafter.
Central government standing counsel Amit Mahajan, appearing Thursday for the ED, said the short affidavit was almost ready and they require some more time to file it.
The court had earlier March 25 asked the probe agency to file its response in the form of an affidavit regarding the maintainability of two separate but similar petitions by Vadra and Arora within two weeks.
The ED had opposed Vadra’s plea, stating it was not maintainable as he ‘wilfully suppressed’ material facts from the court. It had contended that the plea of Vadra was an abuse of process of law. When he feared that ‘law will catch him, he challenged the PMLA provisions’, the ED had added.
The ED case relates to allegations of money laundering in the purchase of a London-based property at 12, Bryanston Square, worth 1.9 million pounds. The property is allegedly owned by Vadra.
Vadra has also sought that various provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, be declared unconstitutional. He has sought in his plea that Sections 3 (offence of money laundering), 17 (search and seizure), 19 (power to arrest), 24 (burden of proof), 44 (offences triable by special courts) and 50 (powers of authorities regarding summons, production of documents and to give evidence, etc) of the PMLA be declared ultra vires or unconstitutional.
