The Madras High Court has quashed an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) registered by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) against DMK Member of Parliament S. Jagathrakshakan, representing Arakkonam constitutency, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act of 2002.
Justices P.N. Prakash and RMT. Teekaa Raman allowed his writ petition pending since 2020, and quashed the ECIR registered on June 12, 2020 on the basis of two First Information Reports (FIRs) that the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) had booked against him for allegedly usurping properties belonging to Chrome Leather Company.
The Division Bench pointed out that a single judge of the High Court had, on September 23 this year, quashed the two FIRs registered by the CB-CID and therefore the ED could also not proceed with its ECIR in view of a recent verdict pronounced by the Supreme Court in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary’s case.
The Bench agreed with senior counsel C. Manishankar and advocate N. Senthil Kumar that when a court of law had quashed a case related to the predicate offence, the ED could not be allowed to proceed further with the investigation which it had initiated solely on the basis of the predicate offence.
Published - November 17, 2022 01:58 pm IST
