News: Manesar land scam: HC quashes ED chargesheet against two realtors-20-05-2022
In June 2020, the ED had filed the second prosecution complaint (chargesheet) against them and 11 others in the Manesar land scam under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has set aside the second prosecutio n complaint (second chargeshe et) filed by Enforceme nt Directorate (ED) in relation to Manesar land scam against two industrialists, Shashikant Chaurasia and Dilip Lalwani.
In June 2020, the ED had filed the second prosecution complaint (chargesheet) against them and 11 others in the Manesar land scam under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Justice Arvind Singh Sangwan of the HC has passed these orders while allowing a petition filed by Dilip Lalwani and Chaurasia. While Lalwani is engaged in the business of real estate, commodity trading and stock trading for the last 30 years, Chaurasia is engaged in food processing and real estate business.
Senior advocate Vikram Chaudhari, while representing the petitioners, had mainly argued that except the sale and purchase of the land by the three land owning companies, the petitioners or the company neither ever applied for obtaining any licence for the development of any colony nor ever applied to the government for withdrawal of the land from the acquisition proceedings as it was a simple investment made by the petitioners.
It was also argued that neither in the state FIR nor in the FIR registered by CBI, the petitioners were named as an accused nor any overt act or covert act is attributed to them. It is also submitted that during the investigation, CBI called the petitioners many times for recording their statements as a witness.
“In the first two complaints filed by the ED, the petitioners were not arraigned as an accused and in the impugned second supplementary statement, the only allegations as per para 16.14(vii) are that the petitioners have purchased the land through their companies, which amounts to proceeds of crime under Section 2(1)(u) read with Sections 3 and 17 of the PMLA. From the perusal of the impugned complaint, on the face of it, it cannot be held that the alleged proceeds of crime as stated in the impugned complaint is a property derived from the criminal activity relatable to a particular schedule or predicate offence, which is not proved as per the CBI investigation,” observed the HC in its detailed orders
The court found that no "scheduled offence" was made out against the petitioners as per the CBI investigation and therefore, the proceedings under the PMLA Act, on the basis of the allegations in the impugned complaint are not established against the petitioners.
“The present petition is allowed and the impugned prosecution complaint No.ECIR/CDZO/04/2015 titled as “Directorate of Enforcement versus Sona Bansal and others”, as well as the order dated June 30, 2020, passed by the special judge, PMLA Panchkula, and subsequent proceedings arising therefrom are hereby quashed qua the petitioners, held the HC.
The case
Initially, the Gurugram police had registered an FIR in connection with the Manesar land scam. Later CBI and ED had taken over the probe in this case. Former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda is one of the accused in this case.
As per the allegations, the Haryana government had issued a notification under the Land Acquisition Act for the acquisition of 912 acres for setting up an Industrial Model Township in Manesar and other villages of district Gurugram. The farmers and landowners had alleged they were cheated to the tune of around Rs 1,500 crore.
