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The challenge made by Senior Advocate Nalini Chidambaram against the summons issued under Section 50 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) that required her to appear before the authorized officer of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with the Sharda Chit Fund Scam has been dismissed by the Madras High Court. The probe pertained to the payment of Rs. One Crore made by the company of Sudipta Sen, the main accused in Sharda Scam to Nalini Chidambaram, which was claimed to have been received as advocate fees.
The main legal contention for Nalini was that as per Section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a woman cannot be compelled to appear before police, CBI investigation revealed nothing incriminating against her. Also, her name was mentioned nowhere in the supplementary chargesheet.
The earlier petition was dismissed by Justice S.M Subramaniam, stating, “there was no absolute bar in summoning an aged woman before Enforcement Directorate”. Presently, an intra-court appeal against that judgment was being considered by the bench.
The PMLA and Cr.PC have been examined, and it was concluded that authorities under the PMLA are different from the police. Also, the Court noted that the appellant had appeared before the ED through authorized agent earlier and did not challenge the summons then. This resulted in the dismissal of the appeal.
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