The Prevention of Money Laundering Act proceedings are independent of the predicate offence and must proceed without delay, reflecting the urgency in addressing economic crimes.

ORDER :

(Order of the Court was made by S.M.SUBRAMANIAM, J.)

Under assail is the order dated 05.03.2024 passed by the XII Additional Special Judge for CBI Cases, Chennai in Crl.MP.No.9102 of 2023 in Spl CC No.2 of 2023.

2. The petitioners/accuseds are A1 and A2, both in the predicate offence and in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 [hereinafter referred as PMLA] cases. An FIR was registered by CBI on 01.05.2013 under Section 120(B) r/w 13(2), 13(1) (e) of Prevention of Corruption Act. In view of registration of scheduled offence, the Enforcement Directorate recorded ECIR and launched investigation under the provisions of PMLA. After completing the investigation, a complaint under Section 4 5(1) r/w Sections 3 and 4 of PMLA was registered before the competent Court of Law. Statements of the accuseds and other persons were recorded under Section 5 0(2) (3) of PMLA. Provisional attachment was made by invoking (1) of PMLA . The provisional attachment order was not confirmed by the Authority. The proceedings before the adjudicating authority was closed, in view of the orders passed by this Court and based on the undertaking given by the accused that they will not alienate the properties provisionally attached under (1) of PMLA.

3. At that point of time, the petitioners preferred a petition under Section 309 of Cr.PC to stay all further proceedings in Spl CC No.2 of 2023 on the file of the Special Court for CBI cases, Chennai. The Trial Court considered the issues raised between the parties and dismissed the petition which resulted in filing of the present Criminal Original Petition before this Court under Section 482 of Cr.PC.

4. The “proceeds of crime” with reference to Section 2 (1) (U) of PMLA are identifiable in the complaint registered by the Enforcement Directorate and the relevant portions are extracted hereunder :-

PMLA: BRIEF SUMMARY OF RESULT OF INVESTIGATION CARRIED UNDER

10.1 Shri G Venkatnarayanan was a central government employee and as per CCS (Conduct) Rule, every government employee is required to file Immovable Property Returns (IPR) and also the intimation to / permission is required to be obtained from the concerned department. As Shri G Venkatnarayanan, despite undertaking to produce, he did not submit the said intimation letter to the department for acquiring the immovable properties as listed above. Hence, in response to the summons dated 23.05.2022, his statement dated 27.05.2022 was recorded wherein he, interalia, stated that earlier he had been convicted by the Hon'ble Special CBI Court in CC No. 8/2014, later Hon'ble Madras High Court acquitted him in Crl.A 161/2016 in the graft case, but the Disproportionate Asset case in CC No. 22/2014 is in final stage before the Hon'ble Special CBI Court, that based on the orders on Hon'ble Madras High Court, he had been reinstated in the department and currently working in Chennai Office in Management System Certification Department. As regards the intimation to the department of acquiring assets, stated that he informed his department about the details of the property held in his and wife's name in the department's online portal and produced a copy thereof.

10.2 It is pertinent to mention that the Shri G Venkatnarayanan produced a copy of the online submission of the IPR for the properties purchased by him. It is observed from the said copy submitted by him that on-line submission was done in the year 2021 which shows that he had not filed IPR when the said properties were purchased and hence, he, as an after thought, filed in 2021.

10.3 Smt K Suja in her statement dated 27.05.202