Chennai, Apr 19 (PTI) Former union minister P Chidambaram's wife Nalini contended in the Madras High Court today that the summons issued to her by the ED in its money laundering probe in the Saradha chit fund scam case was "purely politically motivated to damage her reputation".

Nalini, a senior lawyer, made the charge while appearing as party-in person before Justice S M Subramaniam and opposing a petition by the Enforcement Directorate seeking to vacate a stay earlier granted by the court on the summons.

After hearing arguments by her and the counsel for the ED, the judge reserved orders on the petition without mentioning any date.

The ED had on September 7, 2016 issued summons to Nalini to appear in its Kolkata office as a witness in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam.

She was allegedly paid a legal fee of Rs 1 crore by the Saradha group for her appearances in court and the Company Law Board over a television channel purchase deal.

The high court had on September 21, 2016 stayed the summons on a petition by Nalini that as per Section 160 of the CrPC a woman could not be summoned for inquiry and it has to be conducted in her residence.

When the matter came up today, Nalini submitted when several lawyers had appeared for "Manoranjana" Sinh, one of the accused in the case, ED has preferred to summon only to her for 'interrogation'.

"This shows that the move is purely politically motivated to damage my reputation," she said.

Pointing out that receiving fee by a counsel for representing an accused was not an offence, she said every lawyer who represents a suspect in criminal cases charge professional fee.

She further reiterated that section 160 of CrPC which gives protection to women, children and senior citizen from being summoned by any authority out of their place of residence applied to this case also.

So far as section 160 of CrPC was not in contrary to the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the protection applies, she added.

Opposing her arguments, Additional Solicitor General G Rajagopalan submitted Sinh has given statement to the agency claiming that Rs 1 crore was given to Nalini towards professional fee.

To verify the claim, the petitioner had been summoned and her request to represent through an authorised person was rejected since the authorities felt that such person cannot provide answer to such queries, he said.

Moreover, the ED believes that the fee was paid out of public money, funds collected from public as chits. Therefore, it can attach properties of the petitioner worth the fee amount if needed.

PMLA also empowers ED to attach properties of such third parties, to recover proceeds of crime, Rajagopalan said.

"But this is a premature stage to decide what are all the proceeds of the crime, we have just issued summon to the petitioner as a witness, there is no room to apprehend that PMLA has been invoked against her," he submitted.

And as per the provisions of PMLA, so far as there was no express bar in the Act, ED can summon any person to appear in person in connection with the probe, Rajagopalan added.

During the previous hearing, counsel for Nalini had said his client had not approached the court to quash the summon.

"All that she insists is when there is a statutory protection, the agency cannot demand her personal appearance," he had said.

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