TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2021 (10) TMI 936
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....om Amaravati Constituency and Union Minister for the State Finance. Respondent No.1 is the Enforcement Directorate authorized under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA). Respondent No.2 in the State of Maharashtra. 3. The Petitioner filed FIR at N.M.Joshi Marg Police Station, Mumbai (later EOW 14/2014) on 18 June 2020 under sections 409, 420 and 120-B of Indian Penal Code. The FIR was filed in respect of irregularities in the loan disbursement by the City Co-operative Bank. On 9 February 2021, Respondent No.1Enforcement Directorate issued a summons to the Petitioner concerning ECIR MBZO-I/02/2021. The summons was issued under section 50 of PMLA calling upon the Petitioner to appear in person or through an authorized representative on 9 February 2021. The Petitioner did not attend pursuant to this summons. Another summons was issued by Respondent No.1 on 18 March 2021 under section 50 of PMLA, calling upon the Petitioner to appear in person on 25 March 2021. The Petitioner did not appear before the Enforcement Directorate and sent a communication to the Respondent No.1 stating that the Petitioner cannot attend as the Petitioner has filed a writ petition in this Court....
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....here is no predicate offence, it is not necessary to dwell at length on this aspect as the learned counsel for the Petitioner, after initially arguing on this point, subsequently, has accepted the position of law that it is not necessary for proceedings need to be taken further under the PMLA that the person needs to be named in the FIR lodged for the predicate offence. Suffice it to say that this contention of the Petitioner was based on the fact that the predicate offence sought to be relied upon by Respondent No.1 in the FIR No.204/2020 filed by the Petitioner himself at N.M.Joshi Marg Police Station, and in this FIR, there is no allegation against the Petitioner. This FIR was transferred to Economic Offences Wing and numbered as EOW-CR-14/2020. 9. The offence for money laundering is defined under section 3 of PMLA. Explanation (i) to section 3 by the amending Act of 2019 has expanded the scope of offence of money laundering under section 3. Section 2(1)(y) defines Scheduled Offences. It is not disputed before us that CR-14/2020 is in respect of a scheduled offence. Regarding the contention that the Petitioner was not named in the FIR having been filed by himself, the learned A....
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....of the PMLA will stand incorporated. This submission is further elaborated to contend that there is nothing in the PMLA that states that the copy of the ECIR is a secret document, and the same is akin to the FIR under the Code of Criminal Procedure which is a public document and must be shared. The learned ASG has relied upon the decision of the Division Bench of this Court in the case of Charu Kishor Mehta v. State of Maharashtra Cri WP No.2961/2015 dtd 29 July 2015 and the decision of the learned Single Judge of Madras High Court in the case of Smt.Sudamani Dorai v/s. Joint Director of Enforcement WP Nos.8383 and 8384 of 2013 decided on 4 October 2018. The learned ASG also contends that the applicability of the Code of Criminal Procedure and whether the ECIR can be equated to FIR is one of the issues in the group of matters fixed before the Supreme Court for hearing. 11. In the case of Ashok Jain, the Enforcement Directorate had registered an ECIR based on a criminal case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation. The Appellant therein had applied for bail under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and, during the pendency of the appeal, filed another applicatio....
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....ises. First, that there is no predicate offence against the Petitioner, and therefore there is a statutory bar we have already dealt with. The second is on the ground of malafides and malice of the authorities on the part of Respondent No.1. 13. The Petitioner contends that the ECIRs filed against the Petitioner is out of political rivalry, malafide and are an abuse of power. According to the Petitioner, the Petitioner's political rival in the Amravati Reserved Constituency was one Navneet Kaur Rana. The Petitioner was defeated in this election, and Navneet Kaur Rana was elected. The Petitioner had filed a Writ Petition No. 3370 of 2018 challenging the Caste Validity Certificate given to Navneet Kaur Rana. According to the Petitioner, when the arguments commenced in Writ Petition No.3370 of 2018 on 4 January 2021, the husband of Navneet Kaur Rana, Mr. Ravi Rana, informed the press reporters that the Petitioner was going to file a complaint against the Petitioner and approached the Enforcement Directorate. According to the Petitioner, the summons issued on 9 February 2021 was pressure put on the Petitioner and as a counterblast to the Writ Petition filed by the Petitioner against N....
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....ner had filed a petition for the same relief of challenging the caste certificate and consequently the election of Navneet Kaur Rana. Thus the Petitioner was not the only person who had challenged the caste certificate of Navneet Kaur Rana. Secondly, the position is settled and even accepted by the learned Counsel for the Petitioner that any person can set the criminal law in motion. Thirdly, the argument of the Petitioner that the proceedings were counterblast to the Writ Petition filed by the Petitioner against Navneet Kaur Rana by her husband Ravi Rana overlooks the need to establish that the Respondent No.1Enforcement Directorate was acting under the dictate of Ravi Rana and that the officers of Enforcement Directorate were acting out of malice at the behest of Ravi Rana. These would be allegations against the officer of the Enforcement Directorate acting malafides. No officer of the Enforcement Directorate who has allegedly acted under the dictate of Ravi Rana by name has been joined or even named in the Petition. Merely by hinting that the husband of Navneet Kaur Rana belongs to the ruling dispensation, the requirement of establishing malafides as a legal ground is not satisf....
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....rt in M/s.Neeharika Infrastructure Pvt.Ltd., after reviewing the law, concluded that the Courts would not stall any investigation into the cognizable offence in which the police have a statutory right and duty to investigate save and except cases where non-inference would result in a miscarriage of justice. The judicial process should not be used, except in rare cases, to quash prosecution at the inception. Considering this law on the subject and considering the facts of the case which we have narrated above, we do not find that this case can be considered as an exceptional case to hold that the initiation of proceedings under PMLA and the ECIRs filed against the Petitioner are either abuse of powers or are malafide. We have not been shown how in any manner, the proceedings by the Respondent No.1 can be considered as beyond jurisdiction or outside the ambit of the PMLA. 17. This brings us to the prayer of the Petitioner that the Petitioner should be protected as the Petitioner is likely to face arrest in the hands of the Enforcement Directorate, and it is only because the Petitioner is currently in the hospital that the Enforcement Directorate has not taken the Petitioner in custo....