Supreme Court Allows ED Probe Against TN Minister V Senthil Balaji In Cash-for-Jobs Scam, Quashes HC Order For Fresh Investigation

The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed a batch of appeals against an order of the Madras High Court ordering a fresh enquiry into the cash-for-jobs scam, in which the Tamil Nadu minister and DMK MLA V Senthil Balaji, among others, has been accused of accepting bribes from job aspirants in exchange of appointments to the state transport corporation between 2011 and 2015. The top court also set aside a direction of the high court staying the proceedings in the money laundering case lodged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).A bench of Justices Krishna Murari and V Ramasubramanian pronounced:“The appeals arising out of the order for de-novo investigation are allowed. That portion of the order of the high court is set aside. The directions issued for the de-novo investigation are set aside. The investigating officers are to proceed with further investigation in all cases, by including the offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Any [] on the part of the investigating officers would pave the way for this court to consider appointing a special investigation team (SIT) in the future.”With respect to the writ petitions filed by the incumbent state electricity minister and DMK legislator Senthil Balaji and others challenging the initiation of proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the bench pronounced:“Appeals arising out of the September 2022 order of the division bench of the high court are allowed. The order is set aside. All three writ petitions challenging the initiation of proceedings by the Enforcement Directorate stand dismissed.”Finally, with respect to the other appeals, contempt petitions, and interlocutory applications being heard together, the bench pronounced:“The appeal arising out of the March 2022 order of the division bench of the high court is dismissed. The appeals challenging the November 2019 and November 2021 orders leading to an extension of time for completion of the investigation are dismissed. The investigating officers are to proceed with further investigation and file further final report in two months. The contempt petitions and interlocutory applications are dismissed.” Arguments raised against PMLAThe hearing of the case witnessed arguments being made against the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal told the top court that the Supreme Court’s July 2022 decision in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary needed a ‘relook’. On another day, senior counsel C Aryama Sundaram argued that he would read the judgement “as it stood” to support his interpretation of the act, but such an interpretive scheme did not support the modus operandi of the ED which routinely conducted ‘fishing’ enquiries to implicate people in money laundering cases. The central agency’s modus operandi, Sibal said, was not only against all ‘canons of justice’, but also violative of the principles of federalism. Later, senior advocate Sidharth Luthra also weighed in, saying the haste with which and the manner in which the directorate had started working made it seem like they were ‘cowboys’ in the ‘Wild West’, and not an agency following statutory principles. Besides emphasising the importance of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act as a part of the global response to transnational organised crime and other insidious activities taking place across geopolitical borders, in rejoinder, the solicitor-general addressed a number of contentions raised by the other side, including the argument that once an accused is discharged for a predicate offence, the Enforcement Directorate had no jurisdiction to investigate. The top law officer also reiterated that the involvement in any one or more of the following activities or processes connected with the proceeds of crime, namely, concealment, possession, acquisition, use, projecting it as untainted property, or claiming it as untainted property, would be an offence of money laundering under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. He explained: “Imagine a person has been accused in a corruption case. Now, based on that corruption case, the ED lodges an enforcement case information report. Its jurisdiction is to figure out where the money, which is the proceeds of the crime, goes. Even if such a person is in possession, he would be guilty of money laundering. It is not necessary for him to ‘launder’ the money in the conventional sense.” One of the central planks of the argument by the other side was that the jurisdictional facts necessary for the directorate to begin an investigation was the commission of an offence, together with the generation of the proceeds of crime with respect to that offence. Sundaram submitted that the existence of identified property or ill-gotten gains in the hands of the accused were the sine qua non of an offence of money laundering. Luthra also raised a similar concern. Sibal went one step further and said that an interpretation which removed the difference between ...

Supreme Court Allows ED Probe Against TN Minister V Senthil Balaji In Cash-for-Jobs Scam, Quashes HC Order For Fresh Investigation

Awstika Das

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