ED moves Delhi HC seeking rectification of factual errors in P Chidambaram bail rejection order

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has moved the Delhi High Court seeking rectification of the “inadvertent factual errors” and “accidental slips” in the order passed by the High Court while deciding the bail plea filed by P Chidambaram in the INX Media money laundering case..Last Friday, the Delhi High Court had denied bail to former Union Minister P Chidambaram in the INX Media money laundering case. In its 41-page judgment, the Delhi High Court had concluded that the triple test for bail was satisfied in the present case. However, it rejected bail on the basis of the gravity of the economic offence at hand..The judgment, however, has some peculiar similarities with the orders passed by the Delhi High Court as well as the Supreme Court in Rohit Tandon’s bail plea..The slips are in paragraphs 35, 36, 39, 40 of the judgment passed a Single judge Bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait..To deal with the contentions with respect to the 2013 Amendment to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the Court quotes from the High Court’s order in Rohit Tandon v. Enforcement Directorate..However, in paragraphs 35 & 36, it accidentally goes on to reproduce the facts of the Rohit Tandon case as recorded in paragraph 16 & 18 of the order passed in the case in May 2017..This verbatim reproduction is not within quotation marks (which would have denoted that it is quoting from High Court judgment in Rohit Tandon case); rather it appears in the order as the High Court’s own observations in the Chidambaram case..While it is common to refer to the facts of a case being relied upon, in its subsequent paragraphs ie. 39 and 40, the High Court judgment goes on to borrow the conclusion with respect to the culpability of Rohit Tandon verbatim, as recorded by the Supreme Court in the appeal against the High Court order in the Rohit Tandon case..In its application seeking rectification, the Enforcement Directorate has clarified that the facts reported in the paragraphs in question do not pertain to the investigation in the INX Media case..The application is likely to come up for hearing in the coming days.