Punjab minister in ED custody urges High Court—treat me the same as AAP MPs who defected to BJP
New Delhi: Hearing a plea filed by Punjab Minister for Industries and Commerce Sanjeev Arora against his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday was urged to treat him like “two recently defected BJP MPs”.
Seeking to quash the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) minister’s arrest and subsequent remand, Bali referred to the recent orders passed by the same bench in the cases of Sandeep Pathak and Rajinder Gupta. Pathak and Gupta, both among the seven AAP MPs who joined the BJP recently, had last week got interim protection by the Punjab Police in cases against them.
Appearing for Arora before a division bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sanjiv Berry, senior advocate Puneet Bali said, “This is a case of political victimisation… I want to show two orders passed by my lords recently where this court has safeguarded (people) from political vendetta. I am seeking parity.”
“An absolute political orchestrate; two Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) raids were made. One against Shri (Ashok) Mittal who defects, joins the ruling party, no arrest is made (against him),” Bali argued, calling the agency’s actions “arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional’. He was referring to former AAP leader Ashok Mittal, a nominated Rajya Sabha member from Punjab who switched to the BJP late in April.
The plea filed under Article 226 of the Constitution by advocates Vibhav Jain, Jasman Singh Gill and Viren Sibal, also prays for a direction to the police to supply a copy of the predicate First Information Report (FIR), which Arora claims has been withheld.
The ED was represented by advocate Lokesh Narang, and the matter has been posted for 14 May.
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Background
Arora was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday during ongoing searches in an alleged money-laundering case worth Rs 100 crore. Arora, a former Rajya Sabha MP, is now in ED custody following a seven-day remand order passed by a Special Court in Gurugram on Sunday.
The legal battle stems from investigations into M/s Hampton Sky Realty Limited (HSRL), a company Arora formerly led as chairman before resigning upon his election to public office.
ED sources earlier told ThePrint that this money-laundering case is an offshoot of its case against Arora under FEMA, in connection with which the agency raided the minister’s residential premises in Ludhiana last month. The recoveries showed that Arora, through his company, made fake mobile phone purchases worth more than Rs 100 crore, and that he allegedly did round-tripping of funds from Dubai to India, disguised as exports, to launder illegitimate funds.
“Incriminating details such as multiple fake Goods and Services Tax (GST) purchase bills were recovered during the raids last month. These bills were obtained from non-existent firms in Delhi to claim fake Input Tax Credit, refunds on GST export credits, and duty drawbacks,” an ED official had told ThePrint.
Vendetta, AAP says
Soon after Arora’s arrest, the AAP strongly condemned the BJP-led central government, alleging that whenever the BJP feels it is losing political ground in elections, it conspires to suppress the Opposition’s voice by unleashing investigative agencies against them. They claimed that the action against Sanjeev Arora is part of a broader agenda of political vendetta.
This ‘political motivation’ also finds mention in Arora’s petition, which says, “… the grounds of arrest are further illegal from the fact as the alleged predicate offence as mentioned by the respondent agency pertains to provisions of Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA) and the same is not a scheduled offence, i.e. it does not fall under the category of scheduled offences as required for prosecution under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), as such, the arrest of the petitioner under PMLA in absence of FEMA being a schedule act is completely illegal and against the settled principles of law and the same seems to be politically motivated”.
According to Arora’s plea before the high court, the timeline of the investigation accelerated rapidly in April 2026 with authorisations issued and extensive searches conducted at Arora’s residence in Ludhiana, his son’s residence in Gurugram, and HSRL’s office premises.
On 19 April, 2026, authorities passed a Provisional Attachment Order under FEMA, freezing Arora’s assets for 180 days; on 5 May, 2026 the ED formally registered an Enforcement Case Information Report under the PMLA.
The petition’s central argument is that the arrest was predetermined. The plea notes that the Investigating Officer purportedly perused Arora’s statement at 3.25 pm and arrested him by 4 pm on 8 May.
The petition argues it is “physically impossible” for an officer to form a genuine “reason to believe” and draft a “pre-typed 17-page document” containing complex charts and shell-entity analyses in just 35 minutes. The plea further contends that the ED lacked valid jurisdictional foundation because the predicate FIR is based on alleged FEMA violations, and “FEMA, 1999 is not a scheduled offence under… the PMLA”.
They maintained that HSRL’s mobile phone export business was a “legitimate business expansion” carried out through transparent banking channels, with no incriminating material found during the searches.
The petitioner, through his son Kavya Arora, has sought a declaration that the arrest dated 9 May, 2026, and all consequential proceedings are “illegal, unconstitutional and against the settled principles of law”, and the immediate release of Arora from ED custody, citing violations of mandatory safeguards under Section 19 of the PMLA and Articles 14, 21, and 22 of the Constitution.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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