‘Accused not prosecuted in offense can be prosecuted under PMLA’

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court held that there is no impediment for the Enforcement Directorate from prosecuting a person for the offense of money laundering under the Public Money Laundering Act merely for a reason that person was not prosecuted for the predicate offense.

A division bench of Justice PN Prakash and Justice Teekaa Raman passed the direction on dismissing a petition filed by P Rajendiran. The petitioner sought a direction to quash the case booked against him under the PMLA 2002.

The judges held that the person may not be involved in the original criminal activity but when the same crime resulted in the generation of proceeds of crime, the said person could have helped the main accused in laundering the proceeds of the crime.

The petitioner submitted that ED arrayed him as an accused of voluntarily lending his name for the purchase of property with ill-gotten money fetched from a bank with fraudulent documents.