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Supreme Court seeks report from Madras High Court: re-hearing of quashed PMLA case
The Supreme Court on Friday ordered Registrar General of the Madras High Court to give a report in a sealed cover about how it dealt with the quashing petition filed by an accused in a Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case. [The considering case: MS Jaffar Sait v. Enforcement Directorate]
The direction was passed by Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih after Senior Advocate Sidharth Luthra, arguing for the accused, put it before the Court that while the case was shown as having been quashed, the same was again listed for hearing.
The Court also has restrained all proceedings before the High Court pending further order in the matter and that the matter was posted for hearing on September 30.
Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Augustine George Masih are the two judges that made the decision.
About six years ago, the Hon’ble Justice Abhay S Oka and the Hon’ble Justice Augustine George Masih criticizing the interpretations and implementations of various provisions of the Indian PC and the context in which it was introduced.
The money laundering case has been filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against a ex-IPS officer Jaffar Sait.
The complaints filed by the Enforcement Directorate against Sait was dismissed by a Bench comprising of Justices SM Subramaniam and V Sivagnanam on August 21.
It may be noted that, two days later on August 23, the same Bench recalled the order made on August 21,1996 and decided to re-hear the matter on merits.
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The charges against Sait include legal offenses primarily charging him with land fraud in which he bought a plot of land from the Tamil Nadu Housing Board in 2011. DVAC had registered a corruption case in this regard against Sait in the year 2018; however, in 2019, the Madras High Court quashed that case.
Sait then transferred the High Court for an order for the striking out of the ED’s complaint in the matter as well.
On the 21st of August the Court dismissed the ECIR after observing that the predicate case (DVAC case) had been dismissed.
But on 23-08-2017 a Bench comprising of Justices Subramaniam and R Sakthivel raised concern over 2-ED on money laundering cases dying a premature death, due to quashing of the FIRs- predicate offence.
This BenchObservation also said in the subsequent part of its judgment that cases registered by the ED under the PMLA cannot be allowed to be washed away.
The Court also the main question that will be discussed in detail to appear. It also requested the ED ‘s counsel to file response to the questions relating to the acquistion of money laundering cases of which Jaffar Sait IPS officer is one of them.
This exchange then forced the Court to quash the August 21 order as well as allow the rehearing of Sait’s plea. The Court the concluded its hearing on the matter and reserved its order.
