ED to appeal HC order quashing NewsClick case
NEW DELHI: Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police are preparing to appeal against the Delhi high court’s judgment quashing EOW’s case against news portal NewsClick and its promoter Prabir Purkayastha.EOW’s case was the basis for ED’s probe into money laundering allegations against the portal. While quashing the FIR, Justice Neena Bansal Krishna said that in the absence of a scheduled offence, ED’s laundering probe (against Purkayastha and NewsClick) is automatically quashed. Sources in ED said that this goes against their understanding that when an investigation is under way in a PMLA case, a court cannot quash a related predicate offence till the probe is concluded. They also said that the HC judge has either completely overlooked or not fully addressed ED’s crucial contentions despite having kept the judgment reserved for five months.At the stage of determining the merit of the FIR, the court just needed to verify if the allegations made in the complaint, if prima facie true, constitute an offence. However, the judgment delved into “whether ED had conclusively established the allegations, and whether the allegations were ultimately provable”, a matter which comes up during the stage of trial.Sources said officials investigating the case faced several obstacles and delays in probing the main accused in the case as the high court, through an order dated June 21, 2021, had directed that no coercive action be taken against the petitioner, which brought the probe to a standstill. The said order was modified only on Oct 10, 2025, they said.Officials asserted that ED and EOW had produced a great deal of “evidence and incriminating material” in support of the allegations against the petitioner, which have not been reflected in the judgment. “The judgment appears to proceed on the basis that nobody was deceived, whereas the case of the ED/EOW was that false representations were made to statutory authorities and banks regarding genuineness of investor, nature and source of funds, commercial nature of investment, valuation of shares,” sources argued.
