ED, CBI Factors In PM Modi’s Anticorruption Crusade

ED, CBI Factors In PM Modi’s Anticorruption Crusade

The verdict is a stinging rebuke to the Opposition that dared to question the credentials of our premier investigation agencies. A particular set of guidelines cannot be issued for the Congress and these Opposition parties since the Supreme Court ruled that political leaders cannot claim immunity above ordinary citizens.

Consider the entitlement of the Opposition that it even declared politicians to be a privileged class to be treated with kid gloves. While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stands for inclusivity and has never pursued unfounded narcissism, the BJP has always stood for a politics of inclusion. 

The lawyer for the Opposition, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, eventually faced his fate. As a result, he presented several statistics to the court to demonstrate that this system of centrally controlled investigation is increasingly being used to target political opponents selectively. 

According to him, of the 72 political leaders investigated by the CBI between 2004 and 2014, 43 were from the Opposition. Now the number has risen to more than 95 per cent. The same trend was observed in ED’s investigations, with a 95 per cent share of opposition leaders investigated (after 2014) as a percentage of all politicians investigated. 

Using the figures above, Singhvi argued that the CBI and ED are applying the law skewed, and the skewed application of the law chills our democratic process.

It seems that Singhvi suffers from selective amnesia since the only times that democracy in India was threatened were under the Congress regime, including the dark era of Emergency under Indira Gandhi from 1975 to 1977.

The Hard Facts

Should these statistics lead to immunity from the investigation? A question was posed to Singhvi by Chief Justice Chandrachud. In his response, the Chief Justice of India noted that politicians could not claim higher immunity because they use statistics that only apply to them. 

However, we cannot restrict guidelines exclusively to politicians. He also added in a futile effort to win brownie points for his petitioners that mass arrests threaten democracy. In this case, authoritarianism is evident. 

Rather than punishing the individual, the process does so. In response to Singhvi’s absurd and devious charge, the CJI declared that political leaders are on equal footing with the citizens.

They do not claim a higher identity. What difference can there be in their procedures? Chief Justice Chandrachud, in asking the Opposition to provide specific instances, said that general guidelines could not be formulated without such facts. 

As an apparent snub to the 14 Opposition parties, the CJI responded to Singhvi, ‘When you say there’s no room for Opposition, it’s time to get back into politics.’ The court is not to blame.

After running several unsuccessful campaigns at the hustings, India’s electorally vanquished Opposition desperately sought a judicial remedy to some political problem. 

It was clear from Singhvi’s petition, on behalf of the Opposition, that the Supreme Court threw it in the garbage, sending out an important message that any attempt to delegitimize the ED and CBI or the Modi government’s fight against corruption, without hard evidence, will not find any takers in the highest echelons of the judicial branch.

Anticorruption Crusade

The unrelenting anticorruption crusade of PM Modi is not limited to the April 5, 2023, verdict that significantly boosted the Modi government. The apex court declared the PMLA, 2002, constitutional in 2022.

Consequently, a debilitated Opposition’s puerile hopes that PMLA provisions would be diluted were dismantled on July 27, 2018. An earlier judgement, Vijay Madanlal Choudhary versus the Union of India, had been cited as supporting the July 2022 verdict. 

During the trial, a bench of Justices ruled that 241 petitions challenging the validity of the law had been filed. 

A court held that the ED should not be required to provide a First Information Report (FIR) under PMLA proceedings, as it is an internal document. An ECIR cannot be supplied to an accused during arrest, but only the reasons for detention must be explained. 

According to the court, the ED manual cannot be published as an internal document. According to the court, the stringent bail conditions under the PMLA Act are not arbitrary and do not violate proportionality. 

Similarly, the court rejected the argument that penal sanctions under the PMLA are proportionate to the crime under the PMLA Act.

According to the court, ED officials, Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) officials, and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials, instead of ‘police’ statements made during an inquiry, are valid evidence, which stings Modi baiters and the Opposition, which make frivolous claims about the ED’s highhandedness.

The aftermath of the apex court’s verdict upholding ED arrests and allegations of gross violation of described procedures, the Left and Congress ecosystems have been crying hysterically needless. 

In its July 2022 judgement, the apex court found all petitioners’ concerns to be without merit. So, what are the petitioners’ concerns related to PMLA? 

In its arguments, the Modi government argued that money laundering under Section 3 was a standalone offence irrespective of whether the predicate offence was acquitted or convicted. 

Moreover, the Central government argued that money laundering is a continuing offence under Section 3 regardless of the time it is included in the Schedule. 

Money laundering can be illustrated by discussing the Patra Chawl scam, reportedly aided by Uddhav Thackeray’s close aide Sanjay Raut. The former leader of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition in Maharashtra, Raut, is a notorious rabble-rouser. 

The remaining area will be developed into flats for MHADA and sold to private developers later. It claims, however, that Pravin Raut and other directors of Guru Ashish Constructions didn’t build a single house for the 672 displaced families.

It was sold to nine private developers for Rs 901.79 crore. A separate project called The Meadows was launched by Guru Ashish Constructions, which has generated bookings of approximately Rs 138 crore from flat buyers. 

According to the ED, Guru Ashish Constructions, they earned Rs 1,039.79 crore from illegal activities. According to the ED, they uncovered that Pravin had received Rs 100 crore from HDIL and diverted it to his close associates, family, and business entities, including Sanjay Raut’s family. 

The ED reported that Varsha Raut received Rs 83 lakh from Madhuri Raut, Pravin Raut’s wife, directly and indirectly in 2010. It was with this money that Varsha Raut purchased an apartment in Dadar.

Additionally, it was revealed that she transmitted Rs 55 lakh to Madhuri Raut after the ED investigation was launched. Further, the ED said there were other transactions involved. 

The ED’s investigation into the Patra Chawl scam clearly shows insistence that Sanjay Raut, his spouse, and his close associates were deeply entangled in defrauding the poor of hundreds of crores and hoodwinking regulators in the process. 

It is in the interests of corrupt politicians like Raut to be held accountable now that the ED has received kudos from the top court. 

In this landmark ruling, the Supreme Court upholds ED powers under PMLA at a time when the Congress party also desperately tries to shield the Gandhi dynasty against relentless ED summonses to Rahul and Sonia Gandhi, who are on bail in the National Herald money laundering case. 

In addition to Sonia and Rahul’s lackey, P Chidambaram, is on bail in the INX Media investigation. The irony is that Rahul Gandhi and his minions preach ethics and integrity to everyone, including the much-maligned Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar, while the entire Congress top brass is out on bail for money laundering or tax evasion charges. 

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) is also struggling as Mamata Banerjee has been accused of the SSC scam, Anubrata Mondal is accused of the cattle scam, Moloy Ghatak is accused of the coal scam, and many others are either in jail or under judicial supervision. 

Even though Mamata can scream about BJP vendetta politics, the TMC is a mess of corruption since Partha and Moloy were close aides and ministers of Mamata’s West Bengal government.

Courts rather than the BJP have indicted these TMC heavyweights. The judiciary has not ruled out the possibility that TMC leaders were sentenced despite ample evidence on their side and not due to alleged shenanigans by the BJP. 

Manish Sisodia and Satyendar Jain epitomize the corrupt AAP of Kejriwal. A court declared that Sisodia was the leading architect and mastermind of the liquor scam. 

An analysis of a corrupt Opposition is incomplete without discussing the role K Kavitha, the daughter of Telangana CM, KCR, continues to play as a victim. 

By blaming the Modi government, the Opposition undercuts the very core of our impartial judicial system because the courts have repeatedly sided with the ED and CBI.

In 2022, the top court upheld almost all of the PMLA’s stringent provisions, which were challenged in court, including proceeds of crime, searches and seizures, arrest powers, attachment of properties, and bail, which were under attack by the ED. 

Additionally, money laundering promotes other heinous crimes, such as terrorism, and offences involving the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS Act), the court found.

Petitioners had argued that arresting an accused without providing grounds or evidence is unconstitutional. Additionally, they said data collection by the ED during questioning under the threat of fines for withholding information constitutes compulsion. 

Because the ECIR is an internal document, the accused don’t need to receive a copy. They said putting the burden of proof on the accused violates fundamental rights such as the right to life and equality. 

Another major challenge was that PMLA charges be filed on cases before 2002 (when it was established), which was rejected last year. The Modi government defended it by saying money laundering is a continuous offence, not a one-time event. 

Even if proceeds of crime were generated before 2002, they might still be in possession of the accused or used by him after 2002. There have been 26 times more money laundering raids under the Modi government. 

In the last few years of the Congress regime, we have attached proceeds of crime worth Rs 99,356 crore. Between 2004 and 2014, we only secured Rs 5346 crore.

In contrast to 2004, just 104 prosecution complaints were filed between 2004 and 2014, demonstrating the commitment of PM Narendra Modi to prevent money laundering through increased searches. 

In its ruling last year, the Supreme Court proved that the provisions of the PMLA are constitutionally valid, nailing the Opposition’s claims.

Modi has repeatedly defended PMLA amendments, claiming that money laundering threatens the integrity and sovereignty of nations, not just because corrupt people in business commit it but also because terror groups engage in it. 

As opposed to the 56 per cent conviction rate recorded in cases prosecuted under the IPC, the 96 per cent conviction rate in PMLA cases is excellent. In about 2000 attachment orders, ED has attached assets worth Rs 1.15 lakh crore during the past 8.5 years. 

A confiscated asset was sold to recover more than Rs 20,000 crore and money owed by errant borrowers to the banks, which were returned to the banks.

Nirav Modi may have been jailed in India for money laundering, but he was acquitted in London by Abhay Thipsay, a congressman. A separate matter is Thipsay losing the Nirav Modi case. 

India’s unstoppable popularity has prevented India’s electorally vanquished Opposition from taking on PM Modi ideologically. A CBI or ED investigation is impartial and free of any political bias.