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SC stays trial against Hooda, 21 others in Panchkula plot allotment case
The Supreme Court in its December 2019 order stayed trial in a similar PMLA case pending before the special court, principal sessions judge, city civil court, Chennai.
The Supreme Court has stayed the trial against former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and 21 others in a Panchkula industrial plots allotment case.
Hearing a bunch of petitions on August 19, a three-member bench of the apex court comprising justices AM Khanwilkar, Krishna Murari and V Ramasubramanian granted a stay on the Prevention of Money Laundering (PMLA) court’s trial on the basis of a December 2019 apex court order.
The Supreme Court in its December 2019 order stayed trial in a similar PMLA case pending before the special court, principal sessions judge, city civil court, Chennai. The December 2019 SC order came after a bench of the Madras high court dismissed a petition that sought quashing of PMLA proceedings as the predicate or scheduled offence investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was closed on the orders of the court.
Vikram Chaudhari, counsel for one of the accused in the Panchkula industrial plots allotment case Lt Col (retd) OP Dahiya, invited the attention of the apex court to the December 2019 order passed in a special leave petition and sought similar interim protection for the petitioner as the facts and circumstances were similar.
About the grounds taken by Lt Col Dahiya in his petition before the apex court, Chaudhari told HT that since the CBI has not filed a charge sheet in the Panchkula case and no trial has begun for the predicate or scheduled offence, the trial under PMLA cannot proceed.
“We have also challenged a 2019 amendment in Section 44 of the PMLA wherein an explanation was inserted,’’ Chaudhari said. The explanation inserted in 2019 for removal of doubts about Section 44 of the PMLA said the jurisdiction of the special court while dealing with the offence under PMLA, during investigation, enquiry or trial under this Act, shall not be dependent upon any orders passed in respect of the scheduled offence, and the trial of both sets of offences by the same court shall not be construed as a joint trial.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in February filed a prosecution complaint (a charge sheet) under the PMLA in a trial court against Hooda and others in the Panchkula case though the CBI, which was probing the matter, was yet to submit a charge sheet for the predicate offences registered under the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Legal experts said the reason behind the ED’s urgency in submitting the charge sheet lay in the 2019 amendments made in the PMLA, which provided that attachment of property involved in money laundering will remain valid during the period of investigation for 365 days. In this case, the 14 industrial plots were attached by the ED in August 2019 and the attachment was confirmed by the adjudicating authority in February 2020.
Experts said the 2019 explanation was inserted in Section 44 to insulate the trial of money laundering offences from the outcome of the trial of the predicate offence by the CBI.
