TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2026 (8) TMI 597
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....respondent, Anitha R. Radhakrishnan, was a Member of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly from the Tiruchendur constituency between May 2001 and May 2006, and during a part of that period he also held the portfolio of Minister for Housing and Urban Development. Alleging that the second respondent had, during his tenure, acquired money and property far beyond what his known income could explain, the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, Thoothukudi, registered a First Information Report against him in the year 2006. The allegation, in essence, was that assets worth around Rs. 2.68 Crore had been built up in his own name and in the names of his wife, his brothers and his sons, none of whom, it was said, had any independent means to acquire such property. 2.2. The investigation led to a final report being filed in Spl.C.No.3 of 2019 on the file of the learned Principal District and Sessions Judge, Thoothukudi. The amount said to be disproportionate to the known sources of income works out to about Rs. 2.08 crore. 2.3. This Court, by order dated 29.04.2025 passed in Crl.R.C. (MD) No.304 of 2014, directed that the trial be brought to a close within six months, that is, on o....
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.... with together. The application was returned on 07.10.2025 raising two queries, viz., (i) how could such an application even be entertained when this Court had already directed that the Thoothukudi case be disposed of within a fixed time; and (ii) how could a court that was admittedly not a Special Court under the PMLA entertain an application founded on that very Act. The said application was re-presented with a response relying on two decisions of the Supreme Court, viz., (i) Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India [(2023) 12 SCC 1]; and (ii) Rana Ayyub v. Directorate of Enforcement [(2023) 4 SCC 357], but was returned again on 15.10.2025 for not properly complying with the earlier queries, then again on 30.10.2025, and was finally taken up for hearing after being re-presented on 10.12.2025 along with copies of further judgments. 2.7. By order dated 11.12.2025, the learned Principal Sessions Judge, Thoothukudi, rejected the application. The reasons given may be summarised thus: the Thoothukudi court has been designated a Special Court only for the purpose of trying cases against Members of Parliament and the Legislative Assembly under the PC Act; it has not been designated ....
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....t in Ranjit Singh Kothari v. State of West Bengal [2023 SCC OnLine Cal 4662], that the very design of the statute is that one court alone should try both sets of offences, so as to avoid the risk of two courts arriving at inconsistent findings on the same facts. 4.4. Reliance is also placed on a decision of this court in Deputy Director v. Deputy Superintendent of Police [2026 SCC OnLine Mad 2125], wherein the CBI court was held to have no option but to transfer a scheduled offence case to the designated PMLA court once an application was made. 4.5. On the specific point of whether cognizance should first be taken by the Special Court before a transfer can be sought, learned Special Public Prosecutor for the petitioner relies on paragraphs 27, 29 and 30 of Rana Ayyub (supra) to argue that Section 44(1)(c) of the PMLA does not impose cognizance by the Special Court as a pre-condition and that requiring it would defeat the very purpose of the 2012 amendment. 4.6. Finally, it is submitted that no prejudice can possibly be caused to anyone, because the Special Court, once the case is committed to it, is bound in any event to take up the matter from the very stage at which it w....
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....int is before a court within the Madurai Sessions Division. These are two different Sessions Divisions. It is submitted that the power to move a criminal case from one Sessions Division to another has never rested with the Sessions Court itself and it rests exclusively with the High Court, under what used to be Sections 406 and 407 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and now finds its place in Sections 448 and 449 of the BNSS. Section 44(1)(c) of the PMLA, it is argued, cannot be read as silently overriding that scheme and conferring the Sessions Court the power to send a case out of its own division. If the petitioner intends to transfer the case, its remedy lay in a transfer petition before this court and not by way of an application before a court that lacked the power to grant it. 6.5. It is also submitted that by the time the application was even filed seeking transfer of the case, the prosecution had examined 79 witnesses and marked 312 exhibits, the defence had examined 6 witnesses and marked 74 exhibits, evidence on both sides stood closed, the prosecution had completed its arguments, and the defence had argued in part. It is submitted that Section 44(1)(c) of the PMLA was....
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....he Special Court, trying a scheduled offence before the commencement of this Act, shall continue to try such scheduled offence; or (b) a Special Court may, upon a complaint made by an authority authorised in this behalf under this Act take cognizance of offence under section 3, without the accused being committed to it for trial. Provided that after conclusion of investigation, if no offence of moneylaundering is made out requiring filing of such complaint, the said authority shall submit a closure report before the Special Court; or (c) if the court which has taken cognizance of the scheduled offence is other than the Special Court which has taken cognizance of the complaint of the offence of money-laundering under sub-clause (b), it shall, on an application by the authority authorised to file a complaint under this Act, commit the case relating to the scheduled offence to the Special Court and the Special Court shall, on receipt of such case proceed to deal with it from the stage at which it is committed. (d) a Special Court while trying the scheduled offence or the offence of money-laundering shall hold trial in accordance with the provisions ....
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....cation can be entertained in anticipation of cognizance. 12. On the admitted facts here, the Special Court at Madurai has not taken cognizance of the money-laundering complaint. It has only issued a notice under Section 223 of the BNSS calling the accused to appear before it decides whether to take cognizance at all, which is a pre-requisite that is held to be mandatory and must be complied with before cognizance can be taken, as has been held by the Supreme Court in Kushal Kumar Agarwal (supra) and was also emphasized in Seeman (supra). 13. Admittedly, one of the two essential facts on which Section 44(1)(c) of the PMLA is built, viz., cognizance by the Special Court, is not yet satisfied. An application asking the Thoothukudi Court to commit the case, even when cognizance was not taken by the Special Court, in our considered view, is premature. 14. That apart, the second respondent was a Minister and a sitting legislator during the period in question. The Special Court at Madurai itself asked for the sanction in September 2025. Nearly a year has gone by and the petitioner has still not produced the same. In the absence of such sanction being produced, the Special Court i....
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....ts against public servants do, by their nature, take long and that is all the more reason not to add fresh, avoidable delay once such a case has almost reached its destination. 20. Equally, this Court is conscious of the principles restated in High Court Bar Association, Allahabad v. State of U.P. [(2024) 6 SCC 267] governing when an interim stay may be vacated, viz., where there is a material change in circumstances, or where continuing the stay would only serve to prolong matters without justification. In the case at hand, by virtue of the stay granted, the trial that this Court itself had earlier directed to be finished within six months in the earlier round of proceedings, has instead stood still and the parallel proceeding with which it was sought to be committed did not move any closer to cognizance. 21. It also needs to be pointed out that the petitioner had, in April 2023, already sought similar relief by way of an application under Sections 301(2) and 302(2) of the Code before the same court, and that petition was dismissed on merits in July 2024, without any appeal being carried against it. While this Court refrains from treating that dismissal as a formal bar, it i....