Telangana High Court on Thursday quashed an order of the CBI Special Court, Hyderabad, to continue the trial of Enforcement Directorate case registered against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and others independent of the CBI case hearing.
Delivering verdict in a batch of criminal petitions filed by 10 parties including YSRCP MP Vijaya Sai Reddy, Jagathi publications and Bharathi Cements, Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan said the trial of case relating to money laundering can continue. But the Special Court judge trying money laundering case, however, can take a pause and await the ultimate pronouncement of the Special Court trying the scheduled offence (CBI case), the verdict said.
Referring to Supreme Court judgment in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary, the CJ said that conviction under section four of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) is dependent on the conviction of a scheduled offence. “If there is no crime there cannot be any proceeds of crime. And if there are no proceeds of crime, the offence of money laundering cannot be sustained,” the verdict said.
Thus existence of a scheduled offence and proceeds of crime as result of criminal activity relating to such offence are ‘sine qua non’ for initiating prosecution under PMLA. The order said that if a person is acquitted of the scheduled offence (CBI case), there cannot be any offence of money laundering against him or her.
This Supreme Court decision is binding on all courts and tribunals in the country. CJ Ujjal Bhuyan explained in the order that if two different courts had taken cognizance of the scheduled offence and the offences under PMLA are different, the authorities probing money laundering charges should file an application before the Special Court trying scheduled offence.
This is to ensure that same court tries both the offences to rule out the paradoxical situation of delivering contrary or conflicting decisions, the judgment said.
