The main legal point established is that under Section 102 Cr.P.C., assets can be seized or frozen if they have a direct link with the alleged offence, and the court has the authority to direct the release of assets if the seized assets exceed the alleged amount involved.

Mukta Gupta, J.

1. By this petition, petitioner challenges order dated 10th March, 2017 passed by the learned Special Judge in RC 221/2016/E0026 under Section 120-B IPC read with Section 13(2) and Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (in short ‘PC Act’) whereby the application under Section 457 read with Section 102 Cr.P.C. filed by the petitioner was dismissed except for release of the Pension Account of the petitioner permitting him to operate the said account to meet his medical and miscellaneous expenses.

2. The above noted FIR was registered on 6th September, 2016 against Ms. Archana Bhargava, wife of the petitioner and two other accused companies namely M/s. Rank Mercantile Pvt. Ltd. and M/s. Astbhuja Dealtrade Pvt. Ltd. and other unknown persons. Pursuant to the search warrants, raids were conducted by the CBI and it also seized various assets of the applicant and froze savings accounts, fixed deposit, lockers, PPF accounts and pension accounts.

3. Case of the petitioner is that the attachment of PPF account is in contravention of Section 9 and 10 of The Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952. Further, the respondent did not comply with the mandatory requirement of Section 102 Cr.P.C. and there was no direct link/connection between the crime alleged and the property seized, thus directions be issued to release/de-freeze bank accounts, FDs, Bonds, LIC policies and PPF account.

4. As noted above, the learned Trial Court only granted limited relief of release of the pension account on a no objection submitted by the CBI.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner and CBI have relied upon the decision reported as (1999) 7 SCC 685 State of Maharashtra Vs. Tapas D. Neogy wherein the Supreme Court explaining scope of Section 102 Cr.P.C. and affirming the decision of the Madras High Court in ‘Bharath Overseas Bank Vs. Minu Publication’ held :

“9. In Bharath Overseas Bank v. Minu Publication [1988 MLW (Cri) 106] a learned Single Judge of the Madras High Court considered the same question and came to the conclusion that the expression “property” would include the money in the bank account of the accused and there cannot be any fetter on the powers of the police officer in issuing prohibitory orders from operating the bank account of the accused when the police officer reaches the conclusion that the amount in the Bank is the outcome of commission of offence by the accused. The Court considered the fact as to how in modern days, commission of white-collar crimes and bank frauds are very much on the increase and banking facilities have been extended to the remotest rural areas and, therefore the expression “property” may not be interpreted in a manner so as to exclude the money in a bank which in turn would have the effect of placing legal hurdles, in the process of investigation into the crimes. According to the learned Judge, such literal interpretation of the expression “property” could not have been the intent of the framers of the Criminal Procedure Code. In para 11 of the said judgment, the learned Judge referred to the object behind investing the police with powers of seizure. It will be appropriate to extract the same in extenso:

“It would now be useful to refer to the object behind investing the police with powers of seizure. Seizure and production in court of any property, including those regarding which an offence appears to have been committed or which appears to have been used for the commission of any offence or any other property will have a twofold effect. Production of the above property may be necessary as evidence of the commission of the crime. Seizure may also have to be necessary, in order to preserve the property, for the purpose of enabling the court to pass suitable orders under Section 452 of the Criminal Procedure Code at the conclusion of the trial. This order would include destruction of the property, confiscation of the property or delivery of the property to an