NEW DELHI — In a setback for senior Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader and former Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik, the Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to consider his plea for urgent hearing on bail application.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal submitted before a bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna that the matter needs urgent hearing and pointed at his client’s deteriorating health pressed for early hearing.

Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju, appeared for the Enforcement Directorate in the matter.

The bench, also comprising Justice M.M. Sundresh, asked Sibal to approach the Bombay High Court for the relief regarding early hearing in the matter.

“We can only say, decide the application. We cannot bypass on the grounds….” it said and scheduled the matter for hearing in July second week.

Malik, arrested by the Enforcement Directorate under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), had moved the Supreme Court aggrieved with the Bombay High Court adjourning his bail application to June 6.

During the hearing on Tuesday, Sibal said the high court adjourned the bail application on the ground of non-availability of the probe agency’s counsel.

He urged the apex court to specify that the matter would be heard by the high court next week and pointed at Raju’s submission that they are ready next week. However, the apex court did not specify any date for the hearing on the matter in the high court.

The investigating agency had arrested Malik in February last year, in connection with a money laundering case over an alleged land deal concerning an aide of terrorist Dawood Ibrahim. In November last year, a special court in Mumbai had rejected his bail application in the money laundering case arising out of activities in 1999.

The ED had filed a charge sheet against the former Maharashtra minister over the monetary transactions in the land deal with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s sister, Haseena Parkar, through her driver Salim Patel. — IANS