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PoliticsCourts

Supreme Court sends Azam Khan's plea against ED arrest to Allahabad High Court

The bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant did not hear the Samajwadi Party leader's challenge itself, and asked the High Court to take up his plea for interim relief on 16 November.

From the editorial desk · New DelhiPublished

Key points

  1. The Supreme Court transferred Azam Khan's plea against his ED arrest to the Allahabad High Court.
  2. The High Court has been asked to list it and decide interim relief on 16 November.
  3. Kapil Sibal argued that PMLA was wrongly invoked in the Jauhar Trust case.

The Supreme Court on Thursday transferred Azam Khan’s challenge to his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate to the Allahabad High Court, declining to hear the Samajwadi Party leader’s case itself.

A bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant directed the Registrar to place the petition before the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court so that it is listed on 16 November. The High Court has been asked to decide Khan’s plea for interim relief on that day.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal pressed for a hearing in the top court, arguing that the money laundering law had been wrongly invoked against his client. “They are saying goats, cows are proceeds of crime, how can that be?” he told the bench.

The ED case is a fresh money laundering case linked to the Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust. Khan, 78, says he was picked up about 40 minutes after walking out of Rampur jail on bail in the dual PAN card case. He has also challenged a 1 November special court order sending him to judicial custody. His counsel Nizam Pasha had mentioned the plea before the Chief Justice on Monday, seeking an urgent listing.

The order sends Khan back to a court that ruled on his cases only last week. On 30 October Justice Samit Gopal of the Allahabad High Court granted bail to Khan and his son Abdullah Azam Khan in the case over forged documents allegedly used to hide Abdullah’s age for his 2017 Assembly nomination, but refused to suspend their convictions. The judge noted that Khan faces 92 criminal cases and has eight earlier convictions.

Khan stays in judicial custody in the ED case until the High Court decides otherwise.