Coal Allocation Per Se Does Not Amount To “Proceeds Of Crime” Under PMLA
Case: Prakash Industries Ltd. & Anr. V. Directorate Of Enforecement
Coram: Justice Yashwant Varma
Case No.: W.P.(C) 14999/2021
Court Observation: “It is pertinent to note that the Act essentially seeks to confiscate properties and assets that may be derived or obtained from criminal activity and which may then be concealed. It is thus evident that it is only gains that may have been obtained by the utilization of the allocation which could have possibly been viewed as proceeds of crime,”
“It is also pertinent to observe that the predicate offense constitutes the very foundation of a charge of money laundering. The entire edifice of a charge of money laundering is raised on an allegation of a predicate offence having been committed, proceeds of crime generated from such activity and a projection of the tainted property as having been legitimately acquired,”
“As has been found in the judgment since the chargesheet bids us to restrict scrutiny of events only up to 04 September 2003, the impugned action could have been sustained if it had been found that proceeds of crime had been derived upto that date. That is clearly not the allegation leveled. Insofar as acquisitions made post that date and the coming into force of the Act is concerned, it is faced with the specter of the first chargesheet having already been quashed. The judgment of the Court quashing those proceedings compels and constrains the Court to acknowledge that no criminal activity was indulged in,”
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Keywords
Coal Allocation, PMLA
