The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has apprised the Kerala High Court that it cannot investigate all aspects and allegations in a first information report (FIR) registered by the police.
The Bench of Justice P Gopinath and Syam Kumar VM on Friday agreed with the submissions put forth by the national agency and observed that unlike other investigating agencies, ED cannot investigate on matters unless the same was registered as a scheduled offence.
Scheduled offences are the acts listed in the Prevention of Money Laundering (PMLA), that are derived from various legislations.
These acts are also referred to as predicate offences, as they constitute the basis for the commission of money laundering offences.
The Bench was hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Vinod Mathew Wilson, State President of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), raising concerns about the probe into the 2021 Kodakara money heist, which allegedly involved Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) State President K Surendran
The Counsel representing ED submitted that the agency has already been looking into the offence of money laundering which had arisen out of the scheduled offence of dacoity and had examined the persons involved to trace the proceeds of crime.
He said the national agency could not investigate all the aspects that the police was alleging in the FIR.
He submitted that the petitioner (Wilson) was making submission that there were allegations against numerous persons. In a case there will be many allegations. ED cannot investigate into all the aspects that the police is alleging in the FIR because the predicate scheduled offence was dacoity, he added.
The Bench observed that the ED was only responsible for investigating the offence of money laundering under the PMLA.
It said the ED’s duty under the PMLA was only to attach or recover proceeds of crime to the government i.e. to forfeit assets to the government which were created using proceeds of crime.
After hearing the parties, the High Court reserved its verdict in the matter.
The state AAP President raised concerns about the probe into the 2021 Kodakara black money heist, which allegedly involved K Surendran.
He contended that in the FIR filed by the police, there were remarks against the BJP State President’s involvement in the hawala transactions, which were not being investigated by the ED.
The hawala system could be understood as an informal and illegal channel for transferring funds from one location to another.
Wilson submitted that offences against Surendran would also be punishable under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and sought action from the Central government and National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the UAPA and the NIA Act.
The counsel for the ED, the Central government and the NIA filed their respective statements and argued that the PIL was not maintainable as the petition filed was politically motivated.
They argued that Wilson had no right to appear in the present PIL, which was connected to a criminal matter as he neither had any connection to the alleged crime nor did he seek to enforce any fundamental rights of the public
Advocates Manu Ramachandran, K Kiranlal, TS Sarath, R Rajesh, Sameer M Nair, Sailakshmi Menon, Jothisha K A and Shifana M represented the petitioner.
Central Government Counsel Jaishankar V Nair appeared for the ED, while Senior Panel Counsel TC Krishna appeared for the Central government and NIA.