The Delhi High Court held that courts cannot issue non-bailable warrants merely for ignoring Enforcement Directorate summons. NBWs can be issued only if conditions under Section 73 CrPC are strictly met.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has clearly ruled that courts cannot issue non-bailable warrants (NBWs) against a person only because they did not comply with summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The Court said that such a step is not allowed unless the strict conditions laid down under the law are fulfilled.
Justice Amit Sharma held that non-bailable warrants can be issued by a court only on a proper request by an investigating agency under Section 73 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The Court explained that Section 73 allows issuance of NBWs only in limited situations.
As per the law, NBWs can be issued only against a person who is already a convict, or a proclaimed offender, or a person accused of a non-bailable offence who is deliberately evading arrest.
Clarifying the scope of this power, the Bench observed,
“It is no doubt true that non-bailable warrants can be issued against the person who is evading investigation and who may not be formally arrayed as accused in the prosecution complaint, however, such persons must be projected as a person accused of committing non-bailable offence and evading arrest for the purpose of Section 73 of the CrPC.”
The Court further examined the Enforcement Directorate’s argument that under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), a person can be summoned for investigation even without being formally accused.
While acknowledging this position, the High Court made it clear that this power under PMLA cannot override the mandatory requirements of Section 73 of the CrPC. The Court held that merely calling someone a “suspect” or summoning them for investigation does not automatically justify the issuance of non-bailable warrants.
These observations were made while setting aside the non-bailable warrants issued against UK-based entrepreneur Sachin Dev Duggal in connection with an ED investigation into alleged money laundering linked to the Videocon group and a bank fraud case.
The record showed that the ED had issued several summons to Duggal starting from January 2022 under Section 50 of the PMLA. Later, the agency moved an application before the PMLA Special Court in Mumbai seeking issuance of non-bailable warrants.
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That application was rejected in February 2023 after the ED itself stated that Duggal was only a “witness” in the matter. The Mumbai court had also suggested that the agency could take action under Section 174 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with non-attendance in response to summons.
Despite this, the ED subsequently approached the PMLA Special Court in Delhi and sought open-ended non-bailable warrants “in aid of investigation.”
In its application, the agency described Duggal as a “suspect” and claimed that his alleged non-cooperation was obstructing the investigation. Accepting this plea, the Delhi court issued non-bailable warrants on February 10, 2023, and later declined to cancel them.
After examining the entire sequence of events and the legal provisions involved, the Delhi High Court found serious flaws in the approach adopted by the trial court.
The High Court observed that the powers under the CrPC had not been exercised in accordance with law. It held that the conditions required for issuing non-bailable warrants under Section 73 CrPC were not satisfied in Duggal’s case.
Accordingly, the High Court cancelled the non-bailable warrants, reinforcing the principle that coercive measures like NBWs cannot be used casually or as a tool to compel attendance during investigation, especially when the person is not shown to be an accused of a non-bailable offence who is evading arrest.
Senior Advocate Mohit Mathur appeared for Sachin Dev Duggal, along with advocates Arshdeep Singh Khurana, Sulakshan S Vedartham, Khushboo Jain and Chetan Nagpal.
The Enforcement Directorate was represented by its Special Counsel Zoheb Hossain, Panel Counsel Vivek Gurnani, and advocates Kartik Sabharwal, Pranjal Tripathi, Daanish Abbasi, Mahesh Gupta, Navin Kumar and Ashish Kapoor.
Case Title:
Sachin Dev Duggal v Directorate of Enforcement
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