e.preventDefault() doesn't work in ionic.on() callback;

In the code below e.preventDefault(); doesn't prevent navigating of <a href='...'></a> elements:

ionic.on('tap', function(e) {
      e.preventDefault();
}, element);

I expect ionioc.on() to work the same way as Jquery but it doesn't. Jquery code works well:

element.on("click", "a", function (e) {
     e.preventDefault();
});

Am I missing something? I thought there should be 'options' in ionic.on() but I didn't find any.