MONEY LAUNDERING is an independent offence and it is not necessary for an accused to be named in the primary offence FIR to be charged, the Jharkhand High Court has said while rejecting the bail petition of an alleged aide of Chief Minister Hemant Soren.
The court passed the order on January 10 against Prem Prakash who was arrested last year by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for alleged money laundering in an illegal mining case. The agency had last year also arrested Pankaj Mishra, Soren’s representative in Barhait constituency of Sahibganj district, and senior IAS officer Puja Singhal in the case.
In November last year, the ED also questioned Soren in connection with the case.
“After having considered the rival submissions advanced on behalf of both the sides, this court is of the view that the argument advanced on behalf of the ED is persuasive enough to reject the petition for bail,” Justice Goutam Kumar Choudhary said in his order.
“Contrary to the submission by the learned counsel on behalf of the petitioner, the offence of money laundering is an independent offence and it is not necessary that the accused charged with the offence of money laundering are the same who are made accused in predicate offence,” he said.
The defence had argued that the ED was without any basis connecting Prakash to some companies involved in the illegal mining business and that he was not even an accused in the predicate offence registered in the matter by Jharkhand police in 2020.
In July last year, while upholding almost all the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the Supreme Court had conceded that under Section 3 of the Act, the offence of money laundering was dependent on scheduled offence. Some parts of the judgment are currently under review of the apex court.
Holding that money laundering was not a conventional crime, the judgment said, “The law enforcement agencies are now confronted with a new species of crime in the form of money laundering, which necessitated the special Act. The law is evolving with different amendments and judicial pronouncements.”
The court held that two witnesses had confirmed Prakash’s role in the case and huge transactions had taken place in his bank accounts which he plausibly could not explain.
“Quite interestingly, even two AK-47 rifles were seized from his house which are said to be of the security guards not posted in his place,” the judge said. “The case is still at its nascent stage and it will not be in the interest of justice to enlarge the petitioner on bail.”
Accepting ED’s allegations against Prakash at this stage, the court said, “The prosecution story reminds one of a crime thriller, where the State withers and the crime cartels with political connection, clash for natural resources of the State. At the centre of this human rapacity is Rajmahal Hills, which runs through the districts of Sahibganj, Pakur and extending up to Dumka, and is famed for the black stone chips used as construction material.”
