Apex Court Grants Protection To Media Baron Raghav Bahl In Money Laundering Case
(Judicial Quest News Network)
The Apex Court has granted protection to media Baron Raghav Bahl from any coercive action of the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case lodged against him. The Bench issued notice and directed no coercive steps to be taken against Bahl (Interim Direction)
A bench comprising CJI NV Ramana, Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Hima Kohli was hearing the SLP filed by Bahl against Delhi High Court ‘s order refusing to pass any order of interim protection in his petition seeking quashing of money laundering cases against him.
The Delhi High Court which on Dec.03 issued notice to the ED on Bahl’s plea seeking quashing of the case, however, had refused any protection to him. Senior Advocate Vikas Singh appearing for Bahl submitted that in the present case re-filing of the Income Tax return for AY 201-19 has now been cleared by the assessing authorities and therefore the money laundering proceedings cannot be allowed to go on. Based on the Black Money complaint the ED proceedings commenced. Now there is no violation, there are no proceedings of crime.IT(authority)have accepted the income tax return for 2018-19 in 2021, he submitted. It was also submitted by Bahl lawyer that while challenge to the black money proceedings was pending before the Supreme Court, which has earlier given him protection from coercive action in that case, the ED has been issuing notices to him in connection with the money laundering case.
the Petitioner had also pointed out that he has filed before this Hon’ble Court the Assessment Order dated 30.09.2021 passed by the Income Tax Department u/s 153A of Income Tax Act, which clearly renders the Complaints under Sections 50 and 51 of the Black Money Act, 2016 infructuous in the pending SLP (Crl) 11039 of 2019 filed by the Petitioner, where these complaints have been challenged. And as the same Order dated 30.09.2021 clearly establishes that there was no unaccounted or concealed income in acquiring the foreign asset – as such, the disclosed foreign asset was acquired by the legitimate post-tax-paid income of the Petitioner and his family members, duly disclosed in
their relevant IT Returns – that should conclusively establish that
there are no “proceeds of crime”, so the ECIR by itself has lost the
legal scaffolding and jurisdiction under PMLA, 2002, and has come
to an end. It has been submitted on behalf of the petitioner that in as much as the predicate offence does not exist, the proceedings in relation to the investigation being conducted by the Enforcement of Directorate cannot continue.
The ED had argued that the issue of the money laundering case is not before the Apex Court and argued that investigation by the agency cannot be stalled on the presumption that the Supreme Court would rule in favour of petitioner.
