New Delhi: Kolkata-based businessman Jitendra Kumar Mehta, who is under the Enforcement Directorate scanner in the I-PAC case, has moved the Supreme Court against the agency’s move to seize his mobile phone during the raids that was conducted on the premises of the political advocacy group and other locations earlier this month.
Through his petition, Mehta wants a restraint order against the ED from undertaking forensic extraction or access to the data stored in his mobile phone. Raising questions of privacy and public importance, Mehta demanded his phone should be accessed strictly in accordance with the law.
Notably, the ED’s panchmana/seizure memo attached with Mehta’s petition, discloses that the agency at the time of the raid had come across Rs 8 lakh cash in his house. Instead of seizing the cash, the ED team took away his mobile phone and issued a notice to him to appear personally in its office on 19 January.
Two officers working with Bandhan Bank had accompanied the ED team as witnesses when it went to carry out a search at Mehta’s residence on 8 January.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant Thursday heard Mehta’s petition and issued a notice to the ED, asking it to clarify the allegations against him and his involvement in the matter under its probe.
However, the bench refused to restrain the ED for now, even as his lawyer, senior advocate C.A. Sundaram and counsel Rohini Musa insisted the agency’s action is an assault on his privacy rights.
A reference to a 2024 SC order, which had stopped the ED from extracting data from the phones of accused facing anti-money laundering probe, failed to convince the bench to pass an interim order in favor of Mehta. The stay order cited as a precedent was in a case involving Future Gaming and Hotels Services Private Limited and given by a bench headed by Justice AS Oka, since retired.
When the counsel attempted to persuade the court to accept their submission on Mehta’s invasion of privacy plea, considering his phone might have personal information that could make him vulnerable, the bench shot back saying if he is innocent, he should not hesitate to appear.
The CJI remarked Mehta should make himself available for questioning before the ED. The observation came after the court noticed that Mehta had sought exemption from appearing before the ED on 19 January on the ground of his wife’s ill health.
In its petition before the Calcutta High Court in the I-PAC case, the ED has reportedly alleged that Mehta, who runs a Non Banking Financial Company (NBFC), assisted in transferring proceeds of crime amounting to Rs 20 crore, which was allegedly used by the advocacy group in Goa.
“Jitender Mehta has assisted in transferring the proceeds of crime through hawala from Kolkata to Goa. He has assisted in transferring Rs 20 crore to Goa to be used by I-PAC in Goa,” the ED has alleged in its petition.
The ED’s action against I-PAC triggered widespread protests in Kolkata. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee personally led a group of top police officers and TMC party workers and allegedly interrupted the agency’s search at the I-PAC director Prateek Jain’s residence.
The ED has claimed Banerjee and state police officials accompanying her allegedly took away Jain’s electronic devices, seriously impacting and hindering the agency’s probe into the case that is linked to CBI’s FIR registered in the coal scam case in November 2020, involving West Bengal-based businessman Anup Manjee and unknown officials of Centre.
Mehta’s petition is not the first to complain against ED’s “arbitrary” and “unconstitutional” practice of seizing electronic devices “in the garb of conducting anti-money laundering” investigation.
There are at least eight cases pending in the top court that have raised concerns over the ED’s unchecked powers under section 17 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to confiscate personal devices such as Mehta’s mobile phone.
All of them have been tagged and would be heard after a larger Supreme Court bench adjudicates on a set of petitions that challenge larger questions of law related to the constitutional validity of certain sections of PMLA.
Under Section 17 of PMLA, the ED has powers for search and seizure of records or properties linked to money laundering, requiring written reasons for belief, and allowing for immediate action if evidence risks being concealed.
Mehta’s petition said that proposed forensic extraction and unrestricted access to the data in his phone should be done only with legal justification, without which such action should be treated as “arbitrary” and “disproportionate”.
Mehta added that he was not challenging the ED’s authority to conduct investigation, but the same should be done in accordance with the law so that his privacy is protected. He said he seeks a “limited and urgent intervention” of the court to “prevent irreversible intrusion into personal digital data pending adjudication of the Constitutional issues raised” in the petition.
“In the absence of any comprehensive data protection regime, it is imperative that procedural safeguards regulate not only access, but also storage, retention, copying, and deletion of such data,” Mehta asserted and emphasised that the safeguards must operate at the time of seizure and not through post-facto remedies.
Therefore, to ensure accountability, judicial scrutiny is needed at the threshold, he said.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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