Mumbai, Dec 15 (Mumbai Mirror): Denying relief to former deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday rejected his petition that challenges the legality of his arrest under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, while the special PMLA court directed that he be sent back to Arthur Road Jail from JJ Hospital.

The division bench of high court justices Ranjit More and Shalini Pansalkar-Joshi delivered a 149-page judgement on Wednesday, stating that economic offences with “deep-rooted conspiracy” and “huge loss of public funds” are grave offences that imperil the financial health of the country. The bench was quoting an earlier Supreme Court judgment.

Bhujbal was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on March 14 earlier this year for causing loss of over Rs 840 crore to the state exchequer. It was alleged that the Nationalist Congress Party leader received kickbacks in the contract for renovating Maharashtra Sadan, a state guesthouse in New Delhi, and also in the contract for construction of state central library on the Mumbai University’s Kalina campus.

Represented by senior advocate Vikram Chaudhary and advocate Sujay Kantawala, Bhujbal had sought relief on various counts. His claims included that he was not produced in court within 24 hours of arrest; that he was arrested without a first information report being lodged, and that too by an officer who wasn’t unauthorised to apprehend him; that his offences were non-cognisable and so the action that followed was illegal as the Code of Criminal Procedure was not followed, and so on.

The ED, represented by two additional solicitors general Neeraj Kaul and Anil Singh, contested all of the former PWD minister’s claims, and the court accepted their submissions.

Over the questions of FIR registration and offences being non-cognisable due to an amendment, the high court observed that Bhujbal was arrested under PMLA, which does not specify registration of FIR before arrest; and since PMLA is a complete Act in itself, CrPC would come into picture only if there was any ambiguity.

Furthermore, Bhujbal had signed the arrest order and was thus aware of its grounds. “After all, the petitioner is not some illiterate person but an educated one, he was a minister in the earlier state government and that too for several years,” the bench said.

The bench also noted that neither Bhujbal nor his counsel raised any grievances before the special PMLA court when he was produced before it for the first time, and they were raising these issues only after eight months when they failed to secure bail on other grounds.

The order of the PMLA court presided over by Judge PR Bhavake, meanwhile, came on a plea by the jail officials that Bhujbal had refused to undergo angiography and hence should be shifted back to the jail. He had complained of chest pain among other things earlier when he was hospitalised.

He can be shifted back to the government-run JJ Hospital if he agrees to undergo angiography, the judge said.