It's not the way to deal with citizens, says SC in D K Shivakumar case

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed Enforcement Directorate's plea for cancellation of bail granted by the Delhi high court to Karnataka Congress leader D K Shivakumar in a

money laundering

case and warned government authorities "not to play" with its order.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and S Ravindra Bhat was irked when senior advocates A M Singhvi and

Mukul Rohatgi

, appearing for the Congress leader, said ED had invoked Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) despite the SC declaring a similar provision as unconstitutional. They said the government had virtually brought it back by amending the law.

At the outset, the bench agreed to examine ED's plea and said the petitions filed by it and Shivakumar could be tagged. However, it later dismissed ED's petition after Singhvi and Rohatgi contended that the agency had copied and pasted from its petition against former finance minister P Chidambaram and even Shivakumar was termed former home minister in the plea.

Accepting the ED's mistake, solicitor general Tushar Mehta urged the court to allow him to rectify it and said the case should be heard on merit. But the bench refused his plea and said, "This is not the way to deal with citizens of the country."

The HC had on October 23 granted bail to Shivakumar, saying he could not tamper with evidence or influence witnesses and no material was shown to indicate that he was a flight risk. The ED had arrested Shivakumar on September 3 in a money laundering case.