Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has moved the Delhi High Court on Tuesday challenging the Enforcement Directorate summons to her under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) provisions.
The plea filed by Mufti also challenged the vires of Section 50 of the PMLA, which empowers ED officers to summon any person to give evidence or produce records. All persons summoned are bound to answer questions put to them, and to produce documents as required by ED officers, failing which they can be penalized under the PMLA.
Mufti, in her plea, stated that she has not been informed if she is being summoned as an accused or as a witness. She stated that she has also not been informed of what she is being summoned in connection with, and the scheduled offence under the PMLA which gave rise to the proceedings in respect of which the summons has been issued to her.
“The petitioner is not the subject of investigation, nor is she an accused, in any of the scheduled offences to the best of her knowledge,” the plea said.
Earlier this month, the ED summoned the PDP president in a money laundering case on March 15, according to officials. The 60-year-old PDP leader, who was released last year after more than a year in detention, has been served notice to appear at the ED headquarters in the capital.
“The petitioner apprehends that the summons is a means of bringing undue pressure and harassment upon her and therefore, the petitioner wishes to assert her constitutional rights in this regard,” the plea said.
“Ever since the petitioner was released from preventive detention following the formal abrogation of Article 370, there have been a series of hostile acts by the State, against her acquaintances and old family friends, who have all been summoned by the ED and a roving inquiry about her personal, political and financial affairs was made, in the course of which their personal devices have been seized,” the plea stated.
The petitioner also wrote to the Enforcement Directorate, inter alia, pointing to the roving nature of the inquiry undertaken in the case thus far and that in the event that she is questioned, she will insist on the legitimacy of the process.
“As a responsible member of society, the petitioner is always ready and willing to aid the process of law. However, it is equally her duty to bring to the notice of this Court, deviations from due process in legislative and executive acts,” Mufti said in her plea.
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