The Congress on Friday hit out at the Centre over a special court describing the arrest of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut in a money laundering case as "illegal", and alleged the Enforcement Directorate is an instrument of "harassment, torture, oppression".
A special court in Mumbai, while granting bail to Raut in a money laundering case by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), had said his arrest was "illegal" and was an instance of "witch-hunt".
Raut stepped out of jail on Wednesday after his bail.
At a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi read out the portions of the court order in which it had criticised the handling of the case.
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"Startling, terrible, shocking, deplorable findings have come to light about the conduct of ED," Singhvi said.
This agency is clearly an instrument of "harassment, torture, pain and oppression", he alleged.
"The judge has recorded clear findings, which I have read to you… No FIR has filed for decades in the Raut case for almost 10 years," he said.
"No convictions are done, not even one conviction, in fact not even one trial completed, forget conviction, not even one trial completed before this designated court," he said.
The approach is to arrest and leave the person languishing in jail, Singhvi alleged.
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This is a misuse of sovereign authority which is what the court is saying, he added.
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge had also attacked the BJP on Thursday citing the special court order and claimed that Raut's bail had exposed the "vendetta politics" of the government.
-With PTI Input
