The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday, December 9, has granted relief to the Shiv Sena MLA Pratap Sarnaik. The MLA is facing an inquiry by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the ₹175 crore money laundering case registered against Tops Grup promoters.
The court in its order instructed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that no action will be taken against Sarnaik and his family.
Sarnaik, his son Vihang Sarnaik and brother in law Yogesh Chandegala had approached SC and filed a writ petition challenging ED’s notice. In the petition, they requested to be interrogated in presence of their lawyers and added that the interrogation session should be recorded on both video and audio mediums.
The SC order clearly stated that no coercive steps should be taken against the three petitioners.
This development comes just a day before Sarnaik was asked to appear before ED on Thursday, December 10. Last month, ED officials conducted searches at Sarnaik's residence and at his offices.
Moreover, it is pertinent to note that five summons were issued to Vihang Sarnaik to appear before agency while three summons were issued to Pratap Sarnaik to appear before the agency.
On November 24, the ED had questioned Vihang for five hours. Later, he failed to appear before the agency on two occasions and cited his wife’s illness as a reason for the same.
However, Pratap Sarnaik quarantined himself for a week as he had travelled outside the state. After his quarantine period ended, Sarnaik sought two weeks to appear before the agency. ED officials asked him to appear before the agency last week but he failed to do so.
Earlier, ED has arrested Amit Chandole, a close aide of Sarnaik and M Sashidharan, the former MD of Tops Grup in connection with the money laundering case.
MLA Pratap Sarnaik had also stated that he would co-operate with the central agency. He also said that his assets were earned after following the rules.
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