The authorized officer has the jurisdiction to take possession of the property attached immediately upon the passing of the order of attachment by the Adjudicating Authority, without waiting for the expiry of the period of limitation for filing appeal.

JUDGMENT

Sanjay Dhar, J. - By this common judgment, we propose to decide two Letters Patent Appeals filed against two separate judgments dated 18th October, 2022, passed by learned Writ Court in WP(C) No.2269/2022 and WP(C) No.2270/2022. In both these cases common question of law which arose for consideration is whether for the purpose of taking possession of the property attached under Section 5 or frozen under sub-section 1-A of Section 17 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (hereinafter referred to as PMLA), the Director or any other officer authorized by him has to wait for the expiry of the period of limitation for filing appeal against the attachment order that has been confirmed in terms of sub-section (3) of Section 8 of the PMLA for taking its possession in terms of Section 8(4) of the PMLA.

2. The learned Writ Court has vide the impugned judgments answered the aforesaid question in negative by holding that the Director or the authorized officer is not bound to wait till the expiry of the period of limitation for filing appeal for the purpose of taking action in terms of Section 8(4) of the PMLA.

3. Before adverting to the rival contentions advanced by learned counsel for the parties, it would be apt to give a brief background of the facts leading to the filing of the instant appeal.

4. It appears that the respondents initiated investigation under the provisions of the PMLA against Shri Rahul Grover and others on the basis of two FIRs bearing Nos.RCCHG0512018S006 and 007 dated 16.10.2018, registered by the Special Crime Branch, Central Bureau of Investigation, Chandigarh. These FIRs pertain to offences under Section 3 and 4 of the Arms Act read with Section 5(2) of the Jammu and Kashmir Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 120-B of RPC. During the investigation, it came to the fore that the appellants herein were found to have indulged in issuance and renewal of arms licences in contravention of the provisions of the Arms Act in lieu of payment of monetary considerations to the Government employees. After analyzing the bank accounts of both the appellants, it was found that they had purchased immovable property in the form of 05 marls of land each at Village Chinoor, Jammu. The source of payments used for purchasing the land and raising construction over the land, according to the respondents, is the illegal funds which they had received in lieu of issuance of arms licences.

5. A provisional attachment order of the aforesaid two properties was issued by the competent authority i.e., Deputy Director Enforcement Directorate, Jammu on 31st March, 2022. The said attachment order was confirmed by the competent authority in terms of its order dated 16th September, 2022. After passing of the aforesaid order of confirmation of provisional attachment in terms of Section 8(3) of the PMLA by the Adjudicating Authority, notice dated 23.09.2022 was issued by the Assistant Director, Directorate of Enforcement, Jammu, in exercise of its powers under Section 8(4) of the PMLA, whereby the appellants were directed to vacate the attached properties within ten days of receipt of the notice. Two separate notices were issued to the appellants and the same became subject matter of challenge before the Writ Court by way of two separate writ petitions, particulars whereof have been given hereinbefore. As already noted, the learned Writ Court dismissed both the writ petitions and repelled the challenge thrown to the impugned notices. The judgments passed by the Writ Court in the aforesaid two writ petitions are under challenge before us.

6. We have heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the impugned judgment passed by the Writ Court, the grounds of appeal and the record of the case.

7. As already noted, the only question which is under consideration before us is whether it was open to the authorized officer to issue the impugned notices of eviction against the appellants without waiting for the expiry of period of limitatio