IMPORTANT POINT
The judgment established the principle that statutory remedies should be exhausted before seeking extraordinary writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

JUDGMENT :

1. Heard Shri N. K. Seth, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Shri Ashish Chaturvedi, for the petitioner and Shri Kuldeep Srivastava, appearing for the Opposite party no.1.

2. This petition has been filed by the petitioner for the following main prayer:-

"1) Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus directing the Respondent no.3 to take steps for constituting the Adjudicating Authority in terms of the mandate of Section 6 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002."

3. An application for interim relief has also been filed wherein the following prayers have been made:-

"a) Stay further proceedings before the Adjudicating Authority as well as operation of the Provisional Attachment Order No. 09/2023 [u/s 5(1)] dated 17.11.2023 (Annexure No.1) and all conse quential proceedings arising therefrom including the Original Complaint No. 2119/2023 dated 12.12.2023 (Annexure No.2) filed before the Adjudicating Authority (u/s 5(5)] and the Show Cause Notice dated 14.12.2023 (Annexure No.3) issued by the Adjudicating Authority [u/s 8(1)] as they are nullity in the eyes of the law during the pendency of the Writ Petition.

b) Hold that until the Respondent No. 2 Adjudicating Authority is constituted in terms of the mandate of law under Section 6 PMLA, and a Chairperson is duly appointed, it may not carry out any further proceedings with respect to the adjudication in original complaint no. 2085/2023 filed by Respondent No. 1, as a single member Adjudicating Authority without a Chairperson tantamount to coram non judice,"

4. A preliminary objection has been raised by Shri Kuldeep Srivastava, saying that the writ petition is not maintainable only against Show Cause Notice and since statutory remedy is available the writ petition should not be entertained. Only a Provisional Order of attachment was issued by the Deputy Director of Enforcement and thereafter the matter was referred to the Adjudicating Authority. The Show Cause Notice dated 14.12.2023 has been issued thereafter by the Respondent no.2 under Section 8 (1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (hereinafter referred to as the 'PMLA' Act of 2002).

5. It has been stated in the writ petition that the petitioner is the Director of M/s Kandarp Hotels Pvt. Ltd. and was the erstwhile Managing Director of M/s Gangotri Enterprises Limited and they had taken loan from various Banks way back in 2007. The Company could not repay such loan and opted for loan restructuring and in June, 2013, the process of Corporate Debt Restructuring was initiated with the support of Bank of India which was the lead banker at that stage. Initially, a letter of approval for the Corporate Debt Restructuring was given on 30.09.2013 and a final letter of approval of restructuring was issued on 31.10.2013. The Bank of India declared the Bank Accounts of M/s Gangotri Enterprises Limited as Non-Performing Assets (NPA) and subsequently the other Banks also declared such accounts of the Company as NPA. On 07.09.2016, a Joint Lenders Meeting was held where the Members decided to appoint Forensic Auditor for conducting forensic audit of the accounts. Later on, a report was submitted and the Bank of India proposed for closure of Forensic Audit Report subject to submission / compliance of required documents by the Company. In pursuance of such letter, M/s Gangotri Enterprises Limited, submitted all required documents and the forensic audit was 'implidely' closed. Post closure of Forensic Audit the Bank of India itself sanctioned additional credit limit facilities to the Company. In 2020, the F.I.R. No. RC2232020A0007 was registered at CBI/AC-V, New Delhi, under Section 120-B, 420, 468, 471 of the Indian Penal Code, 1850 and Section 13 (2) read with Section 13 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. On 01.01.2021 an ECIR bearing ECIR/LKZO/01/2021 was registered by the Enforcement Directorate by treating the subject F.I.R. as a scheduled offence under the Act of 2002. The CBI filed a C