MP and wife told: You must travel 1500 km for ED questioning

The ED wanted to question a sitting MP and his wife in Delhi — 1500 km from their home. They said: summon us in Kolkata. The Supreme Court just told them why that won't work.

A bench of two judges — Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma — looked at a question that had been simmering for months: could the Enforcement Directorate force a Member of Parliament and his wife to travel across the country for questioning, or did the law require the agency to come to them?

The answer, when it came, was blunt. The file on the desk, thin and worn, carried the weight of a case that would settle how every person summoned under the money laundering law now reads their notice.

The coal trail that led to Delhi

The story begins not in a courtroom, but in the coal fields of West Bengal. In November 2020, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered an FIR in Kolkata. The allegation: illegal coal mining and theft from Eastern Coalfields Limited, orchestrated by a coal mafia operative named Anup Majee, with help from complicit company employees. Coal dust, one might imagine, still clung to the case files when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) — India's anti-money laundering agency — took note.

The next day, the ED registered a case at its headquarters in New Delhi. The alleged money laundered: approximately Rs. 1300 crores, linked to the coal theft.

As the investigation deepened, the ED found something that shifted the geography of the case. A police inspector had allegedly received Rs. 168 crores from the coal mafia. The money, the agency said, was meant to be delivered to political figures. And the funds had moved — through vouchers, through transfers — to Delhi and overseas.

That Delhi connection became the anchor for everything that followed.

The summons that sparked a fight

The ED issued summons under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA — the law that gives the ED its powers to investigate money laundering). The recipients: Abhishek Banerjee, a sitting Member of Parliament, and his wife Rujira Banerjee. The location: the ED's Delhi office, 1500 kilometres from their home in Kolkata. The summons, dated 28 November 2020, bore the letterhead of the ED's Head Investigative Unit (HIU), New Delhi — a document that would trigger a legal battle lasting nearly four years.

The couple did not comply. Instead, they went to court. Their argument was straightforward: the ED has an office in Kolkata. We live in Kolkata. Question us here.

They pointed to Section 160 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC — the general law that governs how criminal investigations are conducted in India). That provision says a woman cannot be summoned to a police station — she must be examined at her home. It also says no person can be required to travel beyond the local limits of their area.

If the CrPC applied to ED summons, the couple argued, the Delhi summons was invalid. And if the summons was invalid, the criminal complaint filed against Rujira Banerjee for disobeying it — under Section 174 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC — the offence of not obeying a lawful order from a public servant) — should also fall.

The Delhi High Court disagreed. The couple appealed to the Supreme Court.

Why the PMLA eats the CrPC for breakfast

The Supreme Court's answer turned on a single, decisive feature of the PMLA: Section 71. That provision says the PMLA overrides every other law. If there is a conflict between the PMLA and any other statute, the PMLA wins.

The court held that the PMLA is a "self-contained code" — it has its own complete system for investigation, summons, and procedure. It does not borrow from the CrPC unless it chooses to. And Section 65 of the PMLA, which says CrPC procedures apply, only applies where the PMLA itself is silent. But Section 50 of the PMLA is not silent. It gives the ED explicit power to summon any person to appear before it, produce documents, and give evidence. There is no territorial restriction written into that section.

The court also found "glaring inconsistencies" between Section 50 of the PMLA and Section 160 of the CrPC. The CrPC provision is designed for police officers investigating ordinary crimes. The PMLA provision is designed for a different kind of investigation — one that often crosses state and national borders. You cannot graft the territorial limits of one law onto the other without breaking both.

And the 2005 Rules framed under the PMLA prescribe a specific procedure for summoning. Those Rules do not include the CrPC's territorial or gender safeguards. The court said that was intentional.

Justice Trivedi read the operative order in a steady voice; the only sound was the rustle of paper as advocates marked the paragraph. The court was unequivocal: "the PMLA is a self-contained code" — a phrase that will now echo in every courtroom where a summoned person argues that the CrPC's protections should apply.

The Delhi connection that sealed the case

Even if the CrPC had applied, the court noted, the ED had established a clear territorial nexus with Delhi. The Rs. 168 crores had moved through Delhi. The ED's HIU in Delhi had registered the case. The HIU, the court said, has no territorial restriction — it can investigate anywhere in India. The zonal offices of the ED, with their territorial demarcations, are merely administrative arrangements. They do not limit the statutory jurisdiction of the HIU.

On the constitutional challenge — that being forced to travel to Delhi violated Article 21 (the right to life and personal liberty) and Article 20(3) (the right against self-incrimination) — the court was equally firm. A person summoned under Section 50 PMLA is not an accused at that stage. They are being called for inquiry into the proceeds of crime. The procedure under the 2005 Rules provides adequate safeguards. No constitutional right was violated.

The Supreme Court dismissed both appeals. The summons stood. The criminal complaint against Rujira Banerjee stood.

The judgment, cited as 2024 INSC 668, drew on two key precedents: Vijay Madanlal Choudhary and Others v. Union of India and Others (2022) and Rana Ayyub v. Directorate of Enforcement (2023), both of which had already established the PMLA's primacy over general criminal procedure.

The procedural journey in full

The case traced a clear path through the legal system. On 27 November 2020, the CBI's Anti-Corruption Branch in Kolkata registered the FIR that started it all. The very next day, on 28 November 2020, the ED registered its ECIR at the HIU in New Delhi. The couple then filed a writ petition and a criminal miscellaneous petition before the Delhi High Court, which dismissed both on 11 March 2022. Finally, the Supreme Court dismissed the criminal appeals on 9 September 2024. Each step, from the coal fields of Bengal to the marble corridors of the Supreme Court, traced a path that ended with a single legal proposition: the PMLA's summons power knows no territorial boundary.

What this means for every future summons

For practitioners, the judgment draws a bright line. If you receive a summons under Section 50 PMLA, do not assume the CrPC's territorial limits or gender safeguards apply. The PMLA is its own universe. The ED can summon you to any office it chooses, including its Delhi headquarters, regardless of where you live.

The only real question is whether the ED has some territorial nexus to the location it chooses. In this case, the nexus was clear — the money trail ended in Delhi. In other cases, that nexus may be weaker. But the burden of challenging it will now rest squarely on the person summoned.

The court also clarified that the organisational structure of the ED — with zonal offices and territorial demarcations — is merely administrative. It does not constitute directions under Section 51 of the PMLA that would limit the jurisdiction of the HIU. This means that even if an ED office exists in your city, the agency can still require you to travel to its headquarters in Delhi if the investigation demands it.

THE PLAY: If you are summoned under Section 50 PMLA, your first question is not "can they summon me here" — it is "what is their territorial nexus to this location," and that fight happens in court, not by ignoring the summons.

The coal trail began in Bengal. But the law, the court said, ends in Delhi.