TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2025 (7) TMI 1968
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....Mr. Shobit Phutela, Senior Panel Counsel. SHEEL NAGU, CHIEF JUSTICE This petition has been filed invoking writ as well as supervisory jurisdiction of this Court under Articles 226 read with 227 of the Constitution of India essentially assailing freezing of the account of the petitioner-company on 08.03.2025 during a raid conducted by the officers of the Enforcement Directorate at the residence of Mohit Goyal, one of the Directors of the petitioner-company, who is alleged to have been paid approximately Rs.45.52 crores as part of sale proceeds of mining material extracted illegally from the mining site situated at village Ratewala, District Panchkula, owned and operated by M/s Tirupati Roadways (proprietor Shri Gurpreet Singh Sabharwal....
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....ce of any express order having been passed about the absence of practicability to physically seize the record/property, the extra ordinary power under Section 17(1-A) of PMLA cannot be exercised. Since there is no such order communicated to the petitioner or passed by the Enforcement Directorate, the entire act of freezing of entire record of the petitioners is nonest in the eyes of law. 3.3 Learned senior counsel for the petitioners has relied upon various decisions including decision of the Apex Court in Opto Circuit India Ltd. vs. Axis Bank and others (2021) 6 Supreme Court Cases 707; an order dated 10.08.2022 passed by a Single Bench of Calcutta High Court in WPA No. 17454 of 2022 (M/s Rashmi Metaliks Ltd. and another vs. Enforcement....
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....hing the act of freezing of the accounts of the petitioner-company. 4. Per contra, learned counsel for Enforcement Directorate despite various queries raised by this Court on different occasions during pendency of this petition, failed to satisfy this Court that any express order was passed in respect of absence of practicability to seize record/property of the petitioners under Section 17(1) of PMLA to enable the ED to enforce the extra ordinary power of freezing under Section 17(1-A) of PMLA. The ED has further failed in their affidavit to satisfy this Court that any such order was made and a copy of the same was served upon the petitioner company or its representative. 5. Since it is not denied by the ED that no such order was pass....
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....ney Laundering Legislation and Programme. To deal with this malady of money laundering, special statute was required to be promulgated which was brought into effect in India from 01.07.2005 as Prevention of Money Laundering (Amendment) Act, 2005. Constitutional validity of majority of the provisions of PMLA has already been upheld in Vijay Madan Lal Choudhary and others vs. Union of India and others (supra) whereafter certain amendments in PMLA were brought out to iron out certain creases in PMLA as pointed out by Apex Court in Vijay Madan Lal case (supra). 9. In the backdrop of the aforesaid pressing need for the malady to be dealt with iron hand, it would be appropriate in the fitness of things and in the interest of public at large an....