Arrested Punjab Industries Minister, Sanjeev Arora, on Tuesday moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court, saying his arrest on the face of it was "arbitrary, mechanical, without jurisdiction, and in violation of the mandatory safeguards guaranteed under Articles 14, 21 and 22 of the Constitution of India".
Sanjeev Arora was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from his official residence here on May 9 under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) of 2002. A Bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sanjiv Berry is hearing the petition.
Seeking his immediate release from “illegal and unconstitutional custody of the Directorate of Enforcement”, he sought directions for staying the “impugned arrest” and setting aside consequential remand. The Judge-cum-Special Judge (PMLA) in Gurugram has remanded him to the custody of the ED till May 16.
In April, the ED had raided Arora’s locations for the second time. According to officials, the searches on May 9 were carried out in Chandigarh and Delhi-NCR region. The premises being searched include the official residence allotted to Arora as the Cabinet minister in Chandigarh.
Responding to the raid, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had accused the BJP of misusing central agencies. In a post on X, Punjab Chief Minister Mann wrote, “In one year, this is the third time the BJP’s ED has come to his house. And in the last one month, the second time.
Yet, they haven’t found anything.” He further wrote, “I want to tell Modi ji that Punjab is the land of the Gurus, which even Aurangzeb could not subdue. This is the land of Bhagat Singh, who never bowed before the British, so Punjab will never bow before Modi’s tactics.
The end of this unethical alliance of ED-BJP will begin from Punjab itself.” In 2024, Arora, the legislator from Ludhiana (West), had faced the ED’s raids in a money laundering case related to the alleged conversion of industrial land for residential projects. At that time, he was a Rajya Sabha MP.