Chennai, Aug 8 (UNI) The Madras High Court has refused to quash the proceedings
initiated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against Tamil Nadu Fisheries and
Animal Husbandry Minister Anitha R. Radhakrishnan under the Prevention of Money
Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 in connection with the Disproportionate Assets (DA)
case.
A Division Bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and V. Sivagnanam dismissed a writ
petition filed by him in 2022 seeking to quash the Enforcement Case Information Report
(ECIR) registered against him in 2020 on the basis of a 2001-2006 DA case filed by the
DVAC in 2006.
The Bench also directed the Minister to cooperate with the investigating agency to complete
the probe in the money laundering case and allow it to file a final report before the special
court.
Mr Radhakrishnan was charged with offences during the 2001-2006 AIADMK regime.
He was subsequently expelled from the party for alleged anti-party activities on
July 30, 2009 and resigned as MLA of Trichendur Assembly constituency when the
AIADMK was in Opposition (2006-2011).
Later, he joined the DMK in 2009, contested from the same seat in the byelection
and got elected. Since then he was with the DMK and won subsequent elections
in 2011, 2016 and 2021 from Trichendur constituency and was made Minister in
the current DMK regime.
The allegation against the Minister is that while serving as an MLA of Tiruchendur
Assembly Constituency and subsequently as a Minister for Housing and Urban
Development (during the AIADMK regime) from 2002-2006, he had acquired assets
disproportionate to his known sources of income to the tune of Rs.2,68,24,7555 in
his name, his wife's name, two brothers and three sons.
Based on this, the ED filed the ECIR which was sought to be quashed in the present
case.
Radhakrishnan contended that the ECIR was filed on the premise that the offences
were scheduled offences. He submitted that the ED had registered the ECIR for
offences under Sections 3 and 4 of the PMLA,which came into force only on
July 11, 2005 and at that time also Section 13 was not part of the scheduled
offences under the Act.
It was submitted that the duration of the predicate offence was the Check period
of May 14, 2001 to March 31, 2006. Hence, he contended that the provisions of
the Act were invoked against him retrospectively.
Radhakrishnan further argued that the PMLA, being a penal statute could not operate
retrospectively and the same would be violative of Article 20(1) of the Constitution,
which states that no person shall be convicted of any offence except for violation of
a law in force at the time of the commission of the act charged as an offence.
It was also submitted that the offence under Section 13 would get attracted only when
a person fails to explain the alleged excess of assets and that the lack of explanation
to account for the assets in the hands of the accused person by itself will not result in
the generation of crime proceeds.
In June 2022, the High Court had stayed the probe. Though this stay was vacated later,
on appeal, the Supreme Court revived the ad-interim stay noting that the same was
appropriate in the facts and circumstances of the case.
UNI GV 1805