Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra has filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court seeking directions to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to refrain from leaking sensitive and unverified information to the media concerning the investigation taken up by the agency against her for alleged violation of the Foreign Exchange Maintenance Act, 1999 (FEMA).
The petitioner has made 19 media houses party to her case and sought directions to restrain them from publishing and circulating any ‘unverified, unconfirmed, false, derogatory content’ against her with regard to these proceedings and also to ensure that all the news reporting and publication were in tune with the official press releases that may be issued by the ED.
The writ petition is likely to come up before the single-judge Bench of Justice Subramonium Prasad on Thursday.
The petitioner alleged that the national agency leaked the details to the media about her being summoned even before she received the summons. ED also leaked the details of allegations against her and the fact that she had sought more time to appear before the agency, noted the plea.
It said ED had acted against the procedure prescribed under the law by leaking ‘confidential, half-baked, speculative/unconfirmed information’ to the media in relation to the ongoing proceedings, thus compromising the investigation, the plea alleged.
Moitra said such leakage of information has hampered the process of the investigation and also violated the rights of the Petitioner such as privacy, dignity of the individual concerned as well as her right to fair investigation.
ED had reportedly issued summons to the Trinamool leader last week and asked her to appear before the agency’s headquarters in Delhi with some documents related to some foreign investments on February 19.