TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (7) TMI 1547
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....rder passed by the Principal District and Sessions Court, Madurai, in Criminal M.P. Nos. 6347 and 6348 of 2022 in C.C. No. 5 of 2022, dismissing the applications filed for discharge of the petitioner from the criminal case and the one filed for appointment of an expert to inspect the areas and to file a report. 2. The Enforcement Directorate has launched prosecution by filing a complaint under Sections 3 and 4 of the "Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002" (for brevity hereinafter referred to as "PMLA") for the offence of money laundering. It is the case of the prosecution that M/s. Om Sri Granites and M/s. Pallava Granites Industries Limited and their respective partners and key officials were involved in various illegal granite ston....
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....er receipt of summons, the petitioner (A9) filed two petitions. Crl.M.P. No. 6348 of 2022 has been filed seeking for discharge from the criminal case. Crl.M.P. No. 6349 of 2022 was filed for appointment of an expert to inspect the areas and to file a report. According to the petitioner, the petitioner did not have any role to play in the functioning of the partnership firms and therefore there is no question of any ill-gotten money insofar as the petitioner is concerned and since there are no materials to substantiate the charge against the petitioner, the petitioner sought for discharge under Section 227 of Cr.P.C. 6. The petitioner had also sought for appointment of an expert on the ground that the department had omitted to properly in....
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....carry on the quarrying operation for M/s. Om Sri Granites and he carried on with the quarrying operation from 1996 to 2010 and therefore, without there being any material against the petitioner (A9), he should not have been added as an accused in this case. 10. The learned counsel for the petitioner further stated that the petitioner (A9) had already resigned from the partnership firm as early as on 03.09.2010 from M/s. Om Sri Granites and from the document dated 30.08.2010, it is clear that the petitioner was no longer in the scene effective from 26.08.2010. Therefore, the petitioner ought not to have been added as an accused in the complaint. 11. The total proceeds of crime as was alleged by the Enforcement Directorate, was to the t....
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....d has rightly dismissed the petitions and that the same does not require interference of this Court. 14. In the case in hand, the learned counsel for the petitioner pointed out so-called deficiencies in the materials that were collected by the Investigating Officer in the predicate offence and submitted that in spite of the final report filed in the predicate offence, the Enforcement Directorate ought not to have blindly taken the chargesheet and independent investigation should have been conducted. 15. The above submission made by the learned counsel for the petitioner is fundamentally flawed. The scope of investigation by the Enforcement Directorate under PMLA is only to find out as to whether there is a predicate offence covered by....
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.... are materials to show that the property identified are proceeds of crime. Therefore, the attempt made by the learned counsel for the petitioner to go into the legality of the various offences projected as predicate offence cannot be gone into in these petitions. 17. The two main grounds that were urged by the learned counsel for the petitioner are that the petitioner was not actively involved in the business and that the petitioner had already been relieved from the partnership firm in the year 2010 itself. Therefore, the property that has been identified by the Enforcement Directorate cannot by any stretch be termed as proceeds of crime. 18. The grounds that have been raised are factual in nature. While dealing with the discharge pe....
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....properties that have been identified, the provisional order of attachment has already been made absolute by the Adjudicating Authority and that prima facie establishes that the respondent can proceed further with the complaint for the offence of money laundering under PMLA. Whether those properties were earned out of the own income of the petitioner, is again a matter for evidence. Just because the petitioner is a doctor by profession and he has held the position as an MLA, there is no legal presumption that the petitioner will never commit the offence of money laundering. Apart from that, the fact that the ill-gotten value of the property of the petitioner was valued at Rs. 56,63,874/- as against the total proceeds of crime quantifie....