No coercive steps with regard to attached assets of Deshmukh till Jan 10: HC

The Bombay High Court on Friday said the Enforcement Directorates adjudicating authority can hear and pass final orders on the provisional attachment of assets of Maharashtras former home minister Anil Deshmukh and his wife Aarti in a money laundering case but no coercive action shall be taken with regard to these properties till January 10A division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Madhav Jamdar directed the ED to submit its affidavit in reply to a petition filed by Aarti Deshmukh challenging the provisional attachment of their assets by the agency in connection with the money laundering caseAnil Deshmukh an NCP leader was arrested in the case last month and is presently in judicial custodyAarti Deshmukh in the plea claimed that while she was not opposed to the authority hearing the issue of provisional attachment of assets the said body was not functioning as mandated by lawHer counsel Vikram Chaudhri had argued earlier that as per the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLA the adjudicating authority under the legislation should be a threemember panel comprising a chairperson and two members one of whom should have law backgroundAlso read Money laundering case Special court denies bail to Anil Deshmukhs two aidesldquoPresently the authority comprises merely a single member who does not even have a law backgroundrdquo Chaudhri had arguedLast week when the plea was mentioned for urgent hearing the bench had said the adjudicating authority could hear the proceedings but it should not pass final ordersThe ED however later mentioned the plea and raised grievance that it was not heard by the HC before the order was passedOn Friday Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh appearing for the ED told the court that the single member adjudicating authority had powers to hear the proceedings as per lawldquoWe ED are challenging the petition on maintainabilityrdquo he saidThe court then said the authority can conduct the proceedings and pass final ordersldquoObviously any such final order if passed shall be subject to the order passed by us HC in this petition If a final order is passed by the adjudicating authority from today till January 10 2022 then we make it clear that no coercive steps shall be taken against the petitioner visagravevis the propertiesrdquo the bench directedThe quasijudicial authority established under the PMLA adjudicates on matters connected with attachment of propertiesEarlier this year the central financial probe agency provisionally attached assets worth over Rs 4 crore belonging to Deshmukh and his family in connection with the money laundering caseThe ED had initiated a probe against Deshmukh after the Central Bureau of Investigation filed an FIR against the NCP leader following a preliminary inquiry into allegations of corruption and official misconduct made against him by former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir SinghThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever