Orders reserved on ED’s plea against Nalini

When the plea came up for hearing before Justice SM Subramaniam on Thursday, Nalini appearing party-in-person, submitted, “Though many lawyers had appeared for Manoranjana Singh, one of the accused in the case, ED preferred to summon only me for interrogation despite my lawyers appearing in the case. This shows that the move is politically motivated to damage my reputation.” Noting that receiving professional fee for representing an accused is not an offence, s h e said, every lawyer who represents a suspect in criminal cases charges professional fee. 

Opposing her arguments, additional solicitor general G Rajagopalan submitted that Manoranjana has offered a statement to the agency claiming that Rs 1 crore was given to Nalini as professional fee. 

To verify the claim, the petitioner has been summoned and her request to represent through an authorised person was rejected since the authorities felt that such a person cannot provide an answer to such queries, he said. 

Moreover, the ED believes that the fee was paid out of public money, funds collected from public as chits. 

This meant that ED can attach properties of the petitioner worth the fee amount if needed, Rajagopalan said. However, noting that Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) empowers ED to attach properties of such third parties, to recover proceeds of crime, the additional solicitor general said, “This is a premature stage to decide on all the proceeds of the crime. We have just issued summons to the petitioner as a witness. There is no room to apprehend that PMLA has been invoked against her.”