ED case against Dalmia Cements MD: Hearing adjourned to April 1

A two judge bench of the High Court at Hyderabad comprising Acting Chief Justice Dilip B Bhosale and Justice P Naveen Rao on Wednesday adjourned a petition seeking exemption from personal appearance by Punith Dalmia, Managing Director of Dalmia Cements before the Enforcement Directorate.

The bench was dealing with a petition filed by Punith Dalmia questioning an order of single judge in dismissing his petition challenging the summons issued by the ED in connection with illegal investments case of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. In his petition, the petitioner said that the ED had the power to summon anyone until a charge-sheet was filed and the present summons was illegal as a charge-sheet was already filed in the case by the CBI.

N Harinath Reddy, counsel for the ED, said summons were issued only based on suspicion and questioned as to why the appellant was hesitating to appear before the authority. The counsel for Dalmia said his client was apprehending arrest in the case. When the ED counsel said there would not be any arrest at this stage, the petitioner said that he had no problem to appear before the ED.

While adjourning the case to April 1, the bench said all further proceedings would be subjected to final outcome of the present appeal.