NEW DELHI: Rajya Sabha MP and senior advocate Kapil Sibal said on Saturday that the Supreme Court ought to have heard the merits of the case of former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren’s arrest by the ED before refusing to interfere in it and urged the court to lay down the criteria for when it should be approached by people.
Sibal alleged that Soren is being targeted as the BJP-led Centre “wants no opposition chief minister to continue in his post” and only “double-engine governments” everywhere.
In a setback to Soren, the Supreme Court on Friday refused to interfere with his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money-laundering case and asked him to approach the high court instead.
A special bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, M M Sundresh and Bela M Trivedi asked senior advocates Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi, appearing before them on behalf of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader, to seek relief from the high court.
Speaking about the ruling at a press conference here, Sibal said, “We should be told by the court as in which matter we should come here (apex court) and in which matter we should not. We do not know whether the Supreme Court will hear our petition or not, but we know about history.”
Arguing that Article 32 also gives a fundamental right to the citizens, he said several cases have been entertained by the Supreme Court and relief provided under the article.
Article 32 of the Constitution gives the right to every citizen to seek constitutional remedy from the Supreme Court when they have been deprived of their fundamental rights. The apex court should make a system or policy under which people know when to approach it and when not, Sibal said.
“I think there would hardly have been any such instance in the history of India when a sitting chief minister is arrested and that is also not deserving to be heard under Article 32. It would have been different if the Supreme Court had heard us and then, after hearing it, said ‘we don’t want to interfere’, but we were not given a hearing also,” the Rajya Sabha MP said.
