Money-laundering provisional attachment survives when predicate offences and proceeds of crime are shown, but property descriptions must be specific.

Provisional attachment under money-laundering law may be sustained where the predicate offence is disclosed and material indicates involvement in proceeds of crime, even if the person was not named in the FIR. The Tribunal accepted that an ECIR can be recorded against such a person when the record shows connection with the scheduled offences and the betting racket, and it upheld attachment of the bank accounts. It also stated that provisional attachment orders must identify property with adequate specificity and should not use vague descriptions of movable or immovable assets, although that objection did not result in interference on the facts noted.

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Issues: (i) Whether the appellant could avoid provisional attachment on the ground that no predicate offence was disclosed against him and that the alleged gambling activity did not sustain action under the money-laundering law. (ii) Whether the provisional attachment order was invalid for want of specificity and for attaching vague movable and immovable properties of the entities.

Issue (i): Whether the appellant could avoid provisional attachment on the ground that no predicate offence was disclosed against him and that the alleged gambling activity did not sustain action under the money-laundering law.

Analysis: The attachment was examined in the backdrop of the FIR, the composite charge-sheet, the ECIR, and the material indicating the appellant's role in the betting racket. The record showed that the predicate offence was not confined to the Gambling Act and included scheduled offences under the IPC. The Tribunal accepted that an ECIR may be recorded even against a person not named in the FIR when the predicate offence is disclosed and material shows involvement in the proceeds of crime. The appellant was found to be connected with the proceeds of crime and therefore the attack on the attachment on this ground was rejected.

Conclusion: The objection based on absence of a predicate offence against the appellant failed and the provisional attachment of the bank accounts was upheld.

Issue (ii): Whether the provisional attachment order was invalid for want of specificity and for attaching vague movable and immovable properties of the entities.

Analysis: The Tribunal found that a provisional attachment order should identify the property with specificity and deprecated vague descriptions of movable and immovable assets. On the facts, however, it noted the appellant's own stand that no such identifiable properties existed in the hands of the concerned entities. Since the challenged description did not result in any effective attachment of non-existent properties, the Tribunal declined to pass any consequential order on that aspect.

Conclusion: The objection to the vague description of entity properties was noted, but it did not lead to interference with the operative attachment of the appellant's bank accounts.

Final Conclusion: The appeal failed insofar as it challenged the attachment of the appellant's bank accounts, while the Tribunal clarified that provisional attachment orders must be specific and not vague in their description of property.

Ratio Decidendi: Provisional attachment under the money-laundering law may be sustained where the predicate offence is disclosed and material indicates possession of proceeds of crime, and an attachment order should specify the property with adequate certainty.

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