Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2026 Supreme(Online)(ATFP) 3

APPELLATE TRIBUNAL FOR FORFEITED PROPERTY
MUNISHWAR NATH BHANDARI, Chairman, G.C. MISHRA, Member
Sukhminder Singh Sodhi @ Om Sodhi – Appellant
Versus
The Deputy Director, Directorate of Enforcement, Ahmedabad – Respondent
MP-PMLA-9874/AHD/2022 | FPA-PMLA-4882/AHD/2022 | MP-PMLA-9706/AHD/2022 | FPA-PMLA-4777/AHD/2022

Shri Awanish Kumar, Advocate
Sh Pankaj Pandey, Vartika Gupta, Advocates (For Sr. No. 1)
Ms. Nidhi Raman, Advocate (For Sr. No. 2)

Cricket betting constitutes a predicate offense under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, validating asset attachment despite challenges regarding processing timelines and evidential burden.

Headnote:(A) Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 - Sections 5(1), 5(3) - Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 - Section 37 - Provisional attachment of properties - Appellant challenged attachment orders for lack of predicate offence and for not confirming orders within 180 days - Court emphasized that cricket betting constitutes a predicate offence and upheld attachments based on involvement in laundering proceeds of crime - Covid-19 lockdown period excluded for computing 180-day limit as directed by the Supreme Court - Irregularities in the banking system noted with significant amounts linked to the appellant's criminal activities - Appeals dismissed. (Paras 1-36)\n

(B) Burden of Proof - Section 24 of the Act - Onus rests on the appellant to prove innocence rather than on the prosecution to establish guilt - Failure to attend investigations and summons constitutes circumstantial evidence of involvement. (Paras 29, 30)\n

Facts of the case:
The appellant engaged in large-scale online cricket betting, linked to hawala transactions and faced provisional attachment of assets due to finding of proceeds of crime. The Adjudicating Authority confirmed attachment despite challenges regarding predicate offence and procedural timeliness.\n

Findings of Court:
The appellant's connections to unlawful betting operations and proceeds were thoroughly documented, solidifying decisions to uphold asset attachments.\n

Issues: The court addressed whether cricket betting constitutes a predicate offense and the validity of confirming provisional attachment orders beyond 180 days.\n

Ratio Decidendi: The court reasoned that cricket betting involves cheating, hence a predicate offense, and judicial discretion permits extending time limits in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, thus upholding the attachment orders.\n

Result: Appeals dismissed.

FINAL ORDER

03.02.2026

Two appeals have been preferred by Sukhminder Singh Sodhi to challenge two separate orders passed by the Adjudicating Authority confirming provisional attachment of the properties. The first order was passed on 25.05.2022 to confirm the provisional attachment order dated 03.09.2021 wherein an immovable property was provisionally attached. Another order was passed on 18.08.2022 to provisionally attach the bank accounts in the name of appellant Sukhminder Singh Sodhi and accordingly two separate appeals have been preferred.

2. It is a case where on a specific intelligence information regarding operation of large scale hawala racket in online international cricket betting through UK based website “betfair.com” by one Sh. Girish Purroshottam Patel alias Tommy Patel and his associate Krishan Jayanti Lal Mala, the proceedings were initiated and accordingly a search operation was conducted under section 37 of Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 on 19.3.2015 in the premises identified as farmhouse in village, Sikandarpur, Vadodra.

3. During the course of initial investigation under the Act of 1999, hawala payments relating to cricket betting were revealed. The information about commission of offence under IPC was given and accordingly an FIR No. 85/2015 was registered on 25.3.2015 for the offences under section 120 B read with section 418, 419, 420, 467, and 471 of . The respondents thereupon recorded ECIR finding commission of predicate offence and initiated there investigation under the Prevention Of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (In short, “the Act of 2002”). The provisional attachment order was caused initially on 03.09.2021 to provisionally attach the immovable property. It is followed by another provisional attachment order dated. 23.12.2021 for provisional attachment of bank accounts.

4. The appellants were found involved in commission of offence which were revealed during the course of investigation. It was on recording of the statement of relevant persons and other material. Sh. Girish Patel alias Tommy Patel, in his statement admitted about his own cricket betting activities in the name of “Tommy” started in the year 2003-2004 from his own house in Gujarat. He continued his betting business till the year 2012. He shifted his base from Unjha to Ahmedabad in partnership with Kiran Jayantilal Mala and started cricket betting racket in the name of “Maruti Ahmedabad”. They shifted their business thereupon to Vijay Nagar, Anand and thereupon Adalaj, Gandhinagar and started operation of the business from there till the year 2015 and thereupon shifted it to Vadodhra.

5. It was involving by Sh. Girish as a partner. It was disclosed that for the purpose of running the cricket betting operations, they initially installed Airtel, Tata sky and Star TV decoder antenna and connected it to TV sets where decoder antenna helped them in watching the match without any advertisements. They also provided a cell number which was called as “line number” to all the bookies to connect them and at the same time to keep their phones on mute mode while the speaker of the phone used by him only. He used to tell the rates to the bookies connected with them through line number and if anyone wanted to place bet, the bookie would un-mute his phone and press the bet. Sh. Girish Patel, thus made admission about his involvement in betting.

6. The statement of Kiran Jayantilal Mala was also recorded under section 50(2) of the Act of 2002. He had shown himself to be the partner of the firm M/s Maruti Ahmedabad with Girish alias Tommy Patel apart from many others. This was even with the involvement of one Mukesh Sharma whose statements were also recorded. The complete modus operandi to run the betting was given corroborating the statement of Sh. Girish. It is with the further statement that Mukesh was giving Master Login ID for Rs. 2.5 lakhs at the rate of Rs. 110 per US Dollar and thereafter he used to give client login ID to 30 different persons a

Click Here to Read the rest of this document