TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (4) TMI 1083
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....e appeal. However, the said prayer was strongly opposed by the Counsels for the Respondents. 4. The relevant facts briefly are that a closure report had been filed in the scheduled offence case by the agency which investigated that matter. The said closure report was accepted by the trial court. Therefore, the prayer before the Ld. AA from the side of the respondents was that as there was no scheduled offence any more, the OA filed by the Directorate could not be sustained and was liable to be dismissed. Reliance was placed by them on the judgements in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India and Ors. 2022 SCC Online SC 929, Prakash Industries W.P. (C) 14999/2021 and 15000/2021 (Delhi High Court) and other cases. Ld. Counsel for ED did not refute the factual submission made by the respondent and admitted that there was no scheduled offence surviving in the case as of today. However, the argument of the Directorate was that the closure report was not based on merits of the case but merely on the ground that the complainant could not be traced. Reliance was placed upon certain judgements in favour of the contention. 5. Upon perusal of the impugned order, it is seen that havin....
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.... had prayed for setting up a special team to investigate the matter. Further, no order has been passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court thereon. He further emphasized that there is no stay on the order of the Trial Court accepting the closure report in the case. 10. I have given careful consideration to the submissions made from either side. It is a settled position arising from the judgement of three-Member Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary (supra) that where a person stands absolved of charges in the scheduled offence case, the charges under the PMLA cannot be sustained against such a person. The core legal proposition stated above remains unassailable and has been scrupulously followed in later judgements of various higher courts as well as this Appellate Tribunal. In the present case, it is a fact noted in the order of the Ld. AA that a closure report was filed by the prosecuting agency, i.e., the State Police, and the same was accepted by the Ld. Trial Court. This fundamental fact has not been contested from the side of the Directorate. However, the case-laws cited from the side of the Directorate must also be examined before the present matter can ....
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....d accepted by the Ld. Judicial Magistrate be set aside and ordered accordingly. The Ld. counsel for the respondents has, in my view, rightly pointed out that in light of the judgment cited, it was for the Directorate to approach the jurisdictional High Court under 482 of the Cr.P.C. but instead the Directorate has chosen to file the present appeal before this Appellate Tribunal in the PMLA matter which is not maintainable. 13. The next case cited on behalf of the Appellant Directorate is Vijayraj Surana V. Assistant Director (supra). The findings of the Hon'ble Madras High Court in that case were that the FIR against the petitioner alone had been quashed but FIRs against other accused were still pending. The investigation in the matter having been handed over to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), the SFIO had also filed a complaint/ chargesheet before the Special Court which was still pending. Although the FIR had been quashed, the offence u/s. 447 of the Companies Act, which is also a scheduled offence under the PMLA, still stood good and required further investigation. Furthermore, the issue before the Hon'ble High Court in that case was regarding quashing of the E....
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....upon the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Pradeep Nirankarnath Sharma v. Directorate of Enforcement (supra). The matter with which the Apex Court was concerned in that case was an appeal filed against an order of the Hon'ble Gujarat High Court dismissing the application refusing to quash the order of the trial court rejecting the appellant's discharge application in a case under the PMLA. The appellant had approached the Hon'ble High Court in a Criminal Revision Application challenging the order passed by the Special Judge (PMLA) rejecting the discharge application filed by the appellant under Section 227 of Code of Criminal Procedure seeking discharge in the PMLA case on the grounds that he has been falsely implicated in the case and also no offence under the PMLA is made out. 16. Having gone through the order of the Apex Court, it is difficult to see which part of the said order the appellant Directorate seeks to rely on in the current context. The main ground taken by the appellant in that case, in the words of the Hon'ble Supreme Court itself, were as follows: "21. A significant ground raised by the Appellant pertains to the nature of the alleged offence und....