Mumbai: The special MPID court slammed the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) for not following the procedure to produce the accused within 24 hours before the court after his arrest. The court refused to remand the accused in a multi-state investment fraud case to the custody of EOW, but instead remanded him back in judicial custody.
The economic offence wing had recently obtained permission to arrest Shaileshkumar Pandey from Presidency Correctional Home in Kolkata.
As per the prosecution case, Pandey was involved in an investment fraud case involving a firm IX Global. It is alleged that Pandey had helped co-accused to open 200 bank accounts for collection of amounts of investment and earned commission of Rs 18-20 crore. The agency sought custody of the accused to interrogate about disposal of said amount.
The plea was objected by the defence claiming that Pandey was illegally detained for two days. It was pointed out that the officials took his custody on June 28, but they produced him before the special court on June 30.
The special court, Kolkata, while granting the permission to get Pandey’s custody from the correctional home, had said that Pandey should be produced before the concerned court (in Mumbai) forthwith, excluding the time taken during transit.
The special court, Mumbai, noted that even though the officer took Pandey's custody physically on June 28, he showed in their application that Pandey was arrested only on June 30 at 10:30am.
“In view of this set of facts the question arises that what is the time of arrest? Whether it is the time of preparing an arrest memo or taking the accused in custody from Presidency Correctional Home, Kolkata,” the court observed.
“The accused is produced beyond 24 hours before this court from actually being taken into custody. Thus, the accused is illegally arrested and produced beyond 24 hours,” the special MPID court held, refusing to hand over Pandey’s custody to EOW.
