Delhi HC allows Anubrata Mondal to withdraw plea alleging illegal custody

New Delhi, July 4 The Delhi High Court on Tuesday allowed Trinamool Congress strongman Anubrata Mondal to withdraw his habeas corpus petition terming his custody in jail as "illegal" in connection with a money laundering case registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) related to the multi-crore cattle smuggling scam in West Bengal. 

Mondal's petition had argued that there was no valid judicial order remanding him in judicial custody.A division bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Gaurang Kanth deemed Mondal's petition untenable to grant him leeway to start appropriate proceedings in law.

On Mondal seeking withdrawal of the petition, the high court allowed it and also dismissed it saying that ideally an appeal, and not a habeas corpus petition, can be filed to challenge a trial court order's legality.

The court said: “After some submissions, the counsel for the petitioner seeks leave to withdraw the present habeas corpus petition with liberty to initiate appropriate proceedings as per law. Leave granted."

“If something is wrong, only an appeal lies. The minute you question legality, habeas corpus does not lie. We will have to dismiss it,” the court added.

In his plea, Mondal had stated that when he was produced before the trial court on May 8, he was not specifically "remanded to judicial custody" but was taken to Tihar Jail.

He had said July 12 was fixed as the next date of hearing, which pushed his purported judicial custody beyond the legally mandated maximum of 15 days at a time.

“The mandate of the law is that an accused can be sent to judicial custody only once a specific order to the said effect is passed by the court, in absence of which, the custody of such an accused is illegal and without the sanction of law,” the plea said.

The petition, therefore, prayed for Mondal’s release from “illegal custody” in Tihar Jail.

The ED had arrested Mondal based on an FIR registered by the CBI in Kolkata against Satish Kumar, the then Commandant of the Border Security Force (BSF).

On August 11 last year, the CBI had arrested Mondal, a close aide of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, in connection with the cattle smuggling case.