A Delhi court has done something both ordinary and extraordinary. It has simply applied the law. In acquitting Arvind Kejriwal in two cases arising out of alleged non-compliance with the Enforcement Directorate's summons in the excise policy matter, the court did not pronounce on guilt or innocence.

It did something more fundamental. It asked a simple question: were the summons validly served in accordance with the law? The answer, in the court's view, was a blatant no. "Mere non-appearance," the court held, does not amount to intentional disobedience.

The ED, it observed, cannot invent its own mode of service when the statute does not provide one. And when electronic evidence is relied upon, the requirements of the Evidence Act must be satisfied. Those deficiencies were not cosmetic, but fatal.

This is not a dramatic verdict. It is a procedural one. And that is precisely why it is devastating. Because the entire edifice of criminal prosecution rests on procedure. Criminal law is not theatre, and certainly not optics or prime-time indignation. It is a slow, exacting discipline. The state must prove service and intent, and the state must comply with evidentiary safeguards.

When it does not, the case collapses. That is not technicality, that is civilisation! Yet we live in a moment when the Prevention of Money Laundering Act has become the sharpest instrument in the political arsenal. The PMLA was enacted in 2002 to combat money laundering linked to serious crime.

It was not meant to be a political dragnet, nor was it designed as a pre-trial incarceration mechanism. And it was certainly not conceived as a device to ensure that the accusation itself becomes punishment.

The Enforcement Directorate's powers under the PMLA are formidable. Arrest without an ordinary FIR. Attachment of property. Stringent bail conditions that invert the presumption of innocence. A........

© Mathrubhumi English