New Delhi: Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have termed as “abuse of the process of law” a plea filed in the Delhi High Court by the Enforcement Directorate challenging a trial court order refusing to take cognisance of its charge sheet against them in the National Herald-linked money laundering case.
In their response, the Gandhis have opposed the ED’s revision petition, saying it is “not maintainable” as the trial court’s order is “perfectly legal and sound in law and does not suffer from any jurisdictional error, perversity, irregularity or illegality”.
On Tuesday, Justice Sachin Datta was informed by the Gandhis’ counsel that they had filed the replies on September 18. The court listed the matter for further hearing on October 12.
In their unified submission to the High Court, the Gandhis raised fundamental statutory objections to the agency’s actions.
The respondents stated that no provision within the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) recognises or permits a “private complaint” to serve as the structural foundation for an ED prosecution.
The defence argued that the 2013 private complaint filed by Dr Subramanian Swamy is legally insufficient to trigger a money laundering investigation under the prevailing statute.
The Gandhis cited the ED’s own administrative record against it. The reply highlighted the agency’s internal notings from 2014 to 2021, a 2015 technical circular, and its formal FATF (Financial Action Task Force) submissions, all of which explicitly demonstrate that the ED itself previously maintained that a primary First Information Report (FIR) was mandatory before initiating PMLA proceedings.
The reply further drew the court’s attention to procedural anomalies regarding the timeline of the appeal.
The defence flagged the unusual “lightning speed” with which the ED moved the High Court, filing its revision petition within 24 hours of the trial court’s dismissal. They contended that such rapid movement bypasses the exhaustive layers of internal bureaucratic approvals typically mandatory for agency actions.
Crucially, the defence emphasised that the trial court’s decision was predicated strictly on pure legal and jurisdictional grounds regarding the absence of a predicate offense FIR. As such, they clarified that the core merits of the case remain untouched by the lower court’s dismissal order.
The single-judge bench has scheduled the matter for further hearing.
