The Supreme Court on Friday sought responses from news portal NewsClick and its editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha on a plea by the Enforcement Directorate challenging the Delhi High Court order quashing a money laundering case registered for alleged violation of FDI rules.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana issued notice to NewsClick and Purkayastha seeking their responses in four weeks.
The counsel appearing for the ED submitted that they needed four weeks' time as Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, representing the agency, was not available on which Justice Bagchi said the appeal does not inspire confidence.
The counsel for ED further submitted that the Delhi Police was also in the process of challenging the quashing of the FIR related to the predicate offence and sought four weeks' adjournment.
In its plea, the ED contended that the high court order quashed its enforcement case information report (ECIR) without examining the PMLA case with inordinate delay of five months in the pronouncement of the judgment.
On May 29, the Delhi High Court had said the continuation of an FIR registered by the Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) was "nothing but a gross abuse of the process of law", and once the FIR under the predicate offence was quashed, the ED's ECIR in the matter was also liable to be closed.
In August 2020, NewsClick's parent company PPK NewsClick Studio Pvt Ltd was alleged of receiving Rs 9.59 crore from Worldwide Media Holdings LLC USA between 2018-19 violating the foreign investment law, causing loss to government exchequer.
(With inputs from PTI)
