Top court stays trial against Hooda, 21 others
The Supreme Court (SC) has stayed the trial under provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and 21 others in Panchkula industrial plots allotment case.
Hearing a bunch of petitions, a three-member bench of the apex court comprising justice AM Khanwilkar, justice Krishna Murari and justice V Ramasubramanian on August 19 granted a stay on the PMLA court’s trial on the basis of a December 2019 apex court order.
The SC, in its December 2019 order, had stayed trial in a similar PMLA case pending before the special court, principal sessions judge, city civil court, Chennai. The December 2019 SC order came after a bench of the Madras HC had dismissed a petition which sought quashing of PMLA proceedings as the predicate or scheduled offence investigated by the CBI was closed by the order of the court.
Vikram Chaudhari, counsel of the petitioner and an accused in Panchkula industrial plots allotment case, Lt Col OP Dahiya (retd) had invited the attention of the apex court to the December 2019 order passed in a special leave petition and sought similar interim protection for the petitioner as the facts and circumstances were similar to that petition.
About the grounds taken by Lt Col Dahiya in his petition before the apex court, his counsel Chaudhari told HT that since the CBI has not filed a chargesheet in the Panchkula case and no trial has begun for the predicate or scheduled offence, the trial under PMLA cannot proceed. “We have also challenged a 2019 amendment in section 44 of the PMLA wherein an explanation was inserted,’’ Chaudhri said. The explanation inserted in 2019 for removal of doubts about section 44 of PMLA said the jurisdiction of special court while dealing with the offence under PMLA, during investigation, inquiry or trial under this act, shall not be dependent upon any orders passed in respect of the scheduled offence, and the trial of both sets of offences by the same court shall not be construed as joint trial.
Chaudhri said the SC had in Nikesh Tarachand Shah case had in 2017 held that trial of both the predicate offences and PMLA go together. However, the 2019 amendment in PMLA changed this, he said, adding this amendment is also under challenge.
In February, the Enforcement Directorate had filed a prosecution complaint (a chargesheet) under PMLA in a trial court against Hooda and others in the Panchkula case despite the fact that CBI which was probing the matter was yet to submit a charge-sheet for the predicate offences registered under IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.
The ED document had triggered discussions on why the agency submitted a chargesheet charging the accused for money laundering before the CBI, probing the predicate offence, could do so. The ED says that every scheduled offence is a predicate offence and the occurrence of the same is a pre-requisite for initiating investigation into the offence of money laundering. The predicate offences are investigated by agencies such as police, customs, SEBI, NCB and CBI, under their respective Acts, the ED says.
Legal experts said the answer to ED’s urgency in submitting the chargesheet lay in the 2019 amendments made in the PMLA which now provided that attachment of property involved in money laundering will remain valid during the period of investigation for 365 days. In this case, the 14 industrial plots were attached by ED in August 2019 and the attachment was confirmed by the adjudicating authority in February 2020. “Once the attachments have been confirmed by the adjudicating authority, the ED will have to submit a chargesheet in court within a year. Otherwise, these attachments would become invalid,’’ said a law expert.