The Calcutta High Court ruled in Ranjit Singh Kothari v. State of West Bengal that a special court designated to hear cases pertaining to money laundering under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) is the appropriate court with the authority to try the scheduled offences that gave rise to the PMLA offence. Judge Tirthankar Ghosh cited Section 44 of the PMLA and its explanations, which define the offences that the special courts are authorised to try.
The judge concluded that the legislature intended for both PMLA offences to be tried by the same court. Thus, the Court decided that the scheduled offence would also be subject to a trial by the special designated court under the PMLA, which has the same authority as a sessions court to handle PMLA offences.
“The legislative intention was that one and the same court would try both the offences, and the special designated court being vested with the sessions power for dealing with offences under PMLA would try such offences,” the High Court ruled, citing a conjoint reading of Sections 44(1)(a), 44(1)(c), and Explanations (i) to Section 44(1).
The Court further noted that a trial for one type of offence would affect the other because the transactions and factual basis for the money laundering violation and the related scheduled offences would be the same.
Consequently, the Court decided that a reasonable interpretation of the clauses could only result in the special court handling PMLA charges being the court handling scheduled offences. Consequently, it upheld a March 24, 2021, decision issued by a Metropolitan Magistrate to transfer a criminal case under the scheduled crime category for trial in conjunction with the PMLA-registered money laundering case.
The petitioners had contested the March 2021 judgement in court, arguing that the mere fact that a PMLA case was also filed later does not automatically result in the trial of a scheduled charge being moved to a different court. Five First Information Reports (FIRs) were filed in May 2011 alleging criminal conspiracy, cheating, and forgery against the accused (petitioner).
Chargesheets were subsequently filed against the petitioner and other accused parties in the case by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which was looking into these matters. Between 2011 and 2012, three more FIRs were filed. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a money laundering case against the accused based on the chargesheets and the fact that the alleged offences were scheduled ones.
The ED filed a request to transfer the case to a special PMLA court in December 2018 before the Metropolitan Magistrate hearing the case pertaining to the scheduled offences. The case was transferred by an order issued by the magistrate. The accused protested this by entering an immediate plea before the High Court. Nevertheless, Justice Ghosh rejected the accused’s plea, finding no merit in their claims.
