Latest News | HC Rejects Plea to Direct ED to Return Seized Material
Get latest articles and stories on Latest News at LatestLY. Citing lack of territorial jurisdiction, a division bench of the Madras High Court has refused to entertain a writ petition from Ramesh Dugar, one of the directors of Dugar Housing Limited, praying for a direction to the Enforcement Directorate in New Delhi to return certain seized documents and a mobile phone from his residence here.
Chennai, Nov 9 (PTI) Citing lack of territorial jurisdiction, a division bench of the Madras High Court has refused to entertain a writ petition from Ramesh Dugar, one of the directors of Dugar Housing Limited, praying for a direction to the Enforcement Directorate in New Delhi to return certain seized documents and a mobile phone from his residence here.
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"We are afraid that in the facts and circumstances of this case, the seizure and recovery of the articles from the premises of the petitioner in Chennai, cannot confer jurisdiction on this court because, the investigation by the CBI as well as by the Enforcement Directorate is being held at New Delhi and the search and seizure is the effect of the investigation and not the cause of the investigation," the bench of Justices P N Prakash and RMT Teeka Raman said last week.
According to the CBI and ED, Vikas Makharia, Associate Vice President of Talwandi Sabo Power Limited (TSPL) approached Karti, son of P Chidambaram, the then Union Home Minister, through his associate S Bhaskararaman in 2011 for getting approval on request submitted by TSPL in the Ministry of Home Affairs seeking permission to reuse visas issued for their project at Mansa in Punjab. During the discussions, an illegal gratification of Rs 50 lakhs was demanded and accepted.
The bench observed that the bribe amount of Rs 50 lakh is said to have been generated from the criminal activity, for which the CBI in New Delhi has registered the FIR.
Now, the Enforcement Directorate in New Delhi is on the trail of the sum of Rs 50 lakh and preliminary enquiries revealed that when the said sum was transacted between TSPL and Bhaskararaman, certain financial dealings appear to have happened between Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited (ASCPL), a company controlled by Karti Chidambaram and Dugar group of companies.
"In such view of the matter, we are afraid that this Court does not have the territorial jurisdiction to entertain this writ petition and therefore, without going into the merits of the case, this writ petition stands dismissed with liberty to the petitioner to work out his remedies in the manner known to law before the appropriate forum," the bench said.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)