Disproportionate assets and burden of explanation: unexplained wealth can sustain attachment even without exact proceeds quantification.

Where movable and immovable assets are vastly disproportionate to known lawful income, the unexplained excess may be presumed to represent proceeds of crime, shifting the burden to the person in possession to justify the source of the assets. Exact separate quantification of the proceeds of crime is not invariably necessary, and failure to quantify them does not by itself invalidate attachment when the disproportion between assets and legitimate income is clear. On that reasoning, the challenge to confirmation of attachment failed and the attachment was upheld.

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Issues: Whether confirmation of attachment could be sustained despite the appellants' contention that the proceeds of crime were not separately quantified and the properties were not shown to have been acquired from predicate offences.

Analysis: The attached movable and immovable assets were found to be vastly disproportionate to the lawful income reflected by the appellants, including salary and agricultural income. The Court held that in cases where the assets in possession are manifold compared with known legitimate sources, the unexplained excess may be presumed to have been acquired from proceeds of crime. It further held that exact quantification of the proceeds of crime is not invariably fatal to the action of the investigating agency, and the burden lies on the person in possession of such unexplained assets to justify their acquisition.

Conclusion: The challenge to the confirmation of attachment failed, and the attachment was upheld.

Final Conclusion: The appeals were rejected, and the confirmation of attachment remained undisturbed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where assets are manifestly disproportionate to known lawful income, the burden shifts to the holder of those assets to explain their source, and non-quantification of the proceeds of crime does not by itself invalidate attachment.

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