Strong leaders, laws, agencies come back to bite citizens they vow to protect: Court pulls up ED

The ED case stems from a CBI probe into allegations that people were given employment in the Railways when RJD leader Lalu Prasad was Railways minister in return for land parcels gifted or sold cheap to his family and associates.

Katyal, an alleged close associate of former Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, had consulted doctors at the Apollo Hospital in Delhi and the Medanta in Gurgaon after being granted interim bail on February 5. He underwent bariatric surgery at the Medanta on April 9.

Senior Advocate Vikas Pahwa, who appeared for Katyal, said that following the recording of statements, the doctor at Apollo Hospital was hesitant to treat his client and due to this he had to seek treatment at the Medanta. Pahwa also said this was an intrusion into Katyal’s privacy regarding medical treatment.

In his order Tuesday, while declining extension of interim bail, Judge Gogne said, “…the ED, as an investigative agency, is bound by the rule of law and cannot be seen as acting mighty against the ordinary citizen who is not even a suspect”.

“If there are any lessons to be learnt from history, it would be observed that ‘strong’ leaders, laws and agencies generally come back to bite the very citizens they vow to protect. After the masculinity of the law has been expressed against the stated targets, such laws are invariably alleged to have been employed against the average citizens,” he said.

Relying on the discharge summary of Katyal from the Medanta, the court noted that he had undergone an “uneventful” procedure and was permitted a lifestyle which could be followed within the jail premises.

The court questioned the manner in which the ED dealt with “an ordinary citizen” (in this case, the doctor) who was unconnected to the proceeds of crime in the case.

“There was absolutely no justification for the ED to subject an ordinary citizen to the stringent process of Section 50 without an iota of allegation of nexus of the doctors with the allegations of money laundering against accused Amit Katyal,” Judge Gogne said.

He noted that the ED took care to avoid examining any of the doctors from government hospitals under Section 50 of the PMLA. “Probably being aware of the non-tenability of the use of Section 50, the ED chose to play it safe qua the government doctors but readily brought the private doctors under the big shadow of Section 50,” he said.

He said citizens possess rights while the State has certain duties and this fundamental relationship cannot be inverted in an authoritarian way in a country like India.

Commenting on Katyal’s right to privacy over not sharing his private medical records with other doctors, the court said that the actions of the ED would have been more appropriately protected if Katyal’s medical records were verified under the court’s directions.

Judge Gogne had earlier asked the ED why it could not wait for the court’s orders like other agencies.

Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, representing the ED, had then said that whatever the agency was doing was to assist the court. “Suppose the doctor is a friend of the accused… We have to do such things then,” he said.

The court had also asked the ED if a person’s private medical records could be shared across doctors. “Is it not an invasion of privacy? It seems as though the records of the accused reached 6-7 doctors,” Judge Gogne said.