Supreme Court verdict doesn't augur well for those under ED lens

Mukesh Ranjan

New Delhi, July 28

As several Opposition leaders, including Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi and TMC’s Partha Chatterjee, face money laundering charges, the Supreme Court verdict, upholding the stringent powers of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), is likely to create further trouble for them.

ED officials said the verdict had strengthened the agency with the top court upholding its powers to arrest, search and attach assets. It had also re-endorsed the provision relating to statements made by accused under the PMLA admissible in the court, they said.

Besides Gandhis and Chatterjee, those facing ED cases included Congress MPs P Chidambaram (INX Media and Aircel-Maxis cases) and Karti Chidambaram (visa scam), Shiv Sena’s Sanjay Raut (Mumbai land deal case), AAP’s Satyendar Jain (hawala transactions), NC leader Farooq Abdullah (financial irregularities in JKCA), TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee (illegal coal mining case), Congress’ Karnataka chief DK Shivakumar (tax evasion and hawala dealings) and a few others.

The officials said a careful reading of the verdict made it clear that the ED could carry out investigations under the PMLA even without an FIR in the predicate offence. “It has now conclusively established that the offences that can come under the purview of the PMLA can be treated as standalone offences and are independent of the proceedings under the scheduled offences, including Indian Penal Code (IPC), Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and Prevention of Corruption Act,” an official said.

Upholding several PMLA provisions, the SC said, “The inclusion or exclusion of any particular offence in the Schedule to the 2002 Act is a matter of legislative policy, and the nature or class of any predicate offence has no bearing on the validity of the Schedule or any prescription thereunder.”

The officials said with the court’s authoritative ruling, the question raised by the Congress regarding an FIR in the National Herald case, involving Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, appeared to have been settled. The strict bail conditions would continue to hound the corrupt and give an upper hand to the investigators, they said, adding the SC had also made it clear that it was not necessary to give ECIR to the accused.