Scheduled offence threshold under PMLA defeated the complaint where Part B value stayed below thirty lakh rupees.

Under the unamended Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002, a scheduled offence under Section 2(y) covered a Part A offence, or a Part B offence only where the total value involved was thirty lakh rupees or more. In a complaint under Section 44, no Part A scheduled offence was alleged and the Part B offences were stated to involve less than thirty lakh rupees. On that statutory footing, the jurisdictional basis for continuing the complaint was absent, and the complaint was held not maintainable and quashed.

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Issues: Whether, in a complaint under Section 44 of the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002, where no scheduled offence falling under Part A of the Schedule was alleged and the value involved in the Part B scheduled offences was below thirty lakh rupees, the complaint could be sustained under the unamended definition of scheduled offence in Section 2(y).

Analysis: The applicable law was the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002 as it stood before the 2013 amendment. Under Section 2(y), a scheduled offence comprised either an offence specified in Part A of the Schedule or an offence specified in Part B of the Schedule if the total value involved was thirty lakh rupees or more. The complaint contained no allegation of any Part A scheduled offence, and the value of the Part B scheduled offences was stated to be less than thirty lakh rupees. In these circumstances, the jurisdictional basis for continuing the complaint was absent.

Conclusion: The complaint was not maintainable and was quashed.

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