The defence of the accused was predicated on a recent Supreme Court ruling that stated a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act cannot proceed if there hasn’t been an earlier FIR filed by another agency.
M Sasidharan, the former managing director of Tops Group, and Amit Chandole, the company’s promoter, who were detained in 2020, submitted petitions for relief with a special court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), but the petitions were denied.
Together with Sasidharan, Chandole, a close ally of Shiv Sena leader Pratap Sarnaik who is now allied with Eknath Shinde and the BJP in the state, had requested their release from custody, arguing that the predicate offence against them had been resolved.
The Supreme Court’s recent ruling that a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cannot proceed if there is no prior FIR filed by another agency served as the foundation for this argument.
According to the PMLA’s rules, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) must have evidence of a past “scheduled crime” or predicate offence before taking legal action against a person. The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police had filed a case on the basis of which the ED had filed its complaint.
However, the EOW asserted that there was no proof of criminality in a closure report presented to a magistrate’s court in January 2022. Last Monday, the C-summary report was accepted for closure by the Esplanade Magistrate court. The accused then requested a release from the court of special PMLA Judge MG Deshpande on the grounds that the ED case procedures could not continue.
ED’s Special Public Prosecutor Kavita Patil argued against the petition and that the EOW’s closure report cannot be regarded as definitive as long as there is still time to file an appeal against it.
After hearing arguments from both parties, Judge Deshpande denied Chandole and Sasidharan’s requests, stating that the EOW’s legal right to appeal was still open. The court will shortly make the complete order public.
