Retrospective benami confiscation barred for pre-amendment transactions; attachment and prosecution proceedings were quashed.

Benami attachment, confiscation and prosecution measures were held unsustainable where they were founded on transactions and properties acquired before the 2016 amendment. The analysis applied the governing Supreme Court position that the unamended offence and confiscation provisions were constitutionally infirm, and that the amended regime created substantive, punitive changes rather than merely procedural ones. Because the confiscatory mechanism could not operate retrospectively, proceedings based on pre-25.10.2016 transactions, including attachments, show-cause notices and connected orders, were liable to be quashed. The challenge succeeded and the petitions were allowed.

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Issues: Whether proceedings for attachment, confiscation, and prosecution under the benami law could be sustained in respect of transactions and properties acquired before the 2016 amendment, and whether the amended confiscatory regime operated retrospectively.

Analysis: The governing legal position was taken from the Supreme Court's ruling that the unamended provisions dealing with the offence and confiscation were constitutionally infirm, and that the 2016 amendment introduced substantive, not merely procedural, changes. The confiscation mechanism was treated as punitive in character and incapable of retroactive application to transactions completed before the amendment came into force. On that basis, proceedings based on pre-amendment transactions could not be continued or initiated, and attachments, show-cause notices, and connected orders issued on that footing were unsustainable.

Conclusion: The challenge succeeded. Proceedings initiated for pre-25.10.2016 benami transactions were quashed and the petitions were allowed in favour of the petitioners.

Final Conclusion: Benami attachment, confiscation, and prosecution measures could not be applied retroactively to transactions completed before the 2016 amendment, and the impugned proceedings were liable to be set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: A confiscatory benami regime that is punitive and substantively new cannot be applied retrospectively to completed pre-amendment transactions, and proceedings founded on such retroactive application are unsustainable.

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