Approver protection in money-laundering complaints: same factual basis may bar treating the pardoned witness as an accused.

Where a person in the scheduled offence case had already been made an approver and examined as a witness, the commentary notes that the same person may not be proceeded against as an accused in the derivative PMLA complaint if both matters rest on the same factual foundation and evidence. It also highlights the statutory protection associated with tender of pardon and compelled testimony, treating the approver's protected status as continuing on those facts. The stated result is that the discharge was upheld and the money-laundering complaint was not permitted to override the approver's witness status.

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Issues: (i) Whether the accused, having been made an approver in the scheduled offence case, was liable to be discharged from the complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. (ii) Whether the proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, in the facts of the case, could continue independently against a person who had turned approver in the scheduled offence and was entitled to the protection of the law relating to tender of pardon and self-incrimination.

Issue (i): Whether the accused, having been made an approver in the scheduled offence case, was liable to be discharged from the complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

Analysis: The complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 arose out of the scheduled offence investigation. The accused had already been treated as an approver in the underlying case and had been examined as a witness under the procedure relating to tender of pardon. The Court held that, on the materials before it, the same factual foundation which supported the scheduled offence case also underlay the money-laundering complaint, and the prosecution could not, in the circumstances, proceed against the approver as an accused on the basis of the same testimony and disclosure already utilised by the prosecution in the scheduled offence case.

Conclusion: The discharge was upheld and the accused was not required to be proceeded against as an accused in the money-laundering complaint.

Issue (ii): Whether the proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, in the facts of the case, could continue independently against a person who had turned approver in the scheduled offence and was entitled to the protection of the law relating to tender of pardon and self-incrimination.

Analysis: The Court applied the principle that money-laundering is an offence connected with the proceeds of crime arising from a scheduled offence, and in the present facts the complaint was founded on the same chain of events and evidence that had already culminated in the accused becoming an approver. The Court further relied on the statutory protection available to a witness who gives incriminating answers while under compulsion, and on the procedural position that a person to whom pardon has been tendered may be examined as a witness rather than prosecuted afresh on the same basis. The Court therefore found no reason to interfere with the trial court's view that the accused should be cited as a witness and not as an accused.

Conclusion: The money-laundering proceedings were not permitted to displace the approver's protected status on the facts of the case.

Final Conclusion: The revision was rejected, and the trial court's order discharging the accused was left undisturbed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the money-laundering complaint is founded on the same factual and evidentiary basis as the scheduled offence case, and the person concerned has already been accepted as an approver and examined as a witness in the underlying prosecution, the court may decline to treat that person as an accused in the derivative complaint and preserve the statutory protection attached to tender of pardon and compelled testimony.

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