Continuing organised crime offences may rely on pre-commencement charge-sheets without violating Article 20(1).

Pre-commencement acts and charge-sheets may be relied on to establish the ingredients of a continuing organised crime offence under the special statute, because the relevant conduct is assessed as antecedent material evidencing ongoing unlawful activity rather than as separate punishment for past acts. The statute is not retrospective merely because it uses earlier charge-sheets as part of the statutory threshold, including the requirement of multiple charge-sheets within the preceding ten years and cognizance by a competent court. Earlier offences remain triable under the law then in force, and their use for this limited purpose does not violate Article 20(1).

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Issues: Whether acts and charge-sheets predating the application of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act to Delhi could be taken into account for prosecution under Section 3, and whether such reliance violated Article 20(1) of the Constitution of India.

Analysis: The statutory scheme treats organised crime as a continuing unlawful activity, requiring more than one charge-sheet filed within the preceding ten years and cognizance by a competent court. The decisive consideration is not whether the earlier acts are independently prosecuted under the special Act, but whether they constitute antecedents evidencing continuing unlawful activity for a prosecution initiated after the Act came into force. A statute is not retrospective merely because some requisites for its operation are drawn from a time earlier than its commencement. The earlier charge-sheets remain triable under the law in force when those offences were committed, while their existence may still be used to establish the statutory ingredients of the later offence. The constitutional challenge under Article 20(1) therefore fails.

Conclusion: The pre-commencement acts and charge-sheets could be taken into account for the limited purpose of invoking Section 3, and no violation of Article 20(1) was made out.

Ratio Decidendi: A special penal statute is not hit by Article 20(1) merely because it relies on pre-commencement antecedents to establish a continuing post-commencement offence, so long as the accused is not tried or punished under the Act for conduct that was not an offence when committed.

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