Maharashtra Cabinet Minister and senior NCP leader Nawab Malik has approached the Supreme Court for his immediate release in a money laundering case.

Mr. Malik is in judicial custody till April 4. He claimed his arrest was illegal. The Bombay High Court had refused his plea.

He was arrested on February 23 in the course of an investigation into an FIR registered against terrorist Dawood Ibrahim. The Minorities Development Minister is an accused in a terror funding case linked to a land deal involving Ibrahim’s sister, Haseena Parkar.

The HC refused to entertain his plea for release on the ground of illegal arrest, saying the Enforcement Directorate had followed due process.

Mr. Malik claimed that the High Court’s refusal to grant him interim release was in violation of the settled position laid down by the Supreme Court in Arnab Goswami case that courts should be protectors of personal liberty.