The AT dismissed the appeal and upheld the provisional...

The AT dismissed the appeal and upheld the provisional attachment by the ED. The Tribunal held that the ED need not conduct an independent probe into the predicate offence and may only point out manifest lacunae in the police/CBI investigation; it cannot supplant findings on the scheduled offence. Properties acquired prior to enactment/amendment can be tainted if proceeds were subsequently projected as untainted and used after the relevant date; therefore temporal acquisition alone did not preclude attachment. The AT found non-compliance pleas unestablished, concluded requirements of Section 5(1) (including the second proviso and clauses (a) and (b)) were satisfied, and rejected discharge-based release arguments. Attachment sustained.

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