NEW DELHI: The government can freeze a person’s property even if it was bought long before an alleged crime and was not paid for with illegal money as long as the actual illegal money cannot be reached, the PMLA Appellate Tribunal has ruled. The tribunal upheld the Enforcement Directorate’s attachment of former Emaar MGF Land chief Shravan Gupta’s property in the AgustaWestland VVIP helicopter case.
The tribunal dismissed Gupta’s appeal on November 4, upholding the ED’s freeze on his assets worth Rs 16.58 crore. Gupta argued that the property had been in his possession for 36 years, long before the alleged crime, so it could not be treated as “proceeds of crime”.
The tribunal disagreed and said a narrower reading would make it easy for an accused to move illegal money out of reach and keep his own property safe. “This would defeat the purpose of the law,” it said.
The ED alleged that Gupta received `28.70 crore bribe through five foreign companies the agency says he controlled. The tribunal noted that these companies are not registered in India, so their assets could not be frozen here. It called Gupta the “ultimate beneficiary” of the money.
Gupta denies having any role in the companies, saying that the ED relies on guesswork.
The ED says Agusta SpA of Italy paid 42 million euros to firms linked to middleman Christian Michel James and 28 million euros to firms linked to Carlo Gerosa and Guido Haschke. Part of that money was allegedly passed through a Tunisian firm and a Mauritius firm, Interstellar Technologies, to Gupta’s companies.
India awarded the contract to AgustaWestland on February 8, 2010. After Italian authorities began investigating the alleged bribes, India cancelled the deal and asked the CBI
to register a case. The CBI filed its case on March 12, 2013. The ED froze Gupta’s assets on March 14, 2024, and a lower authority confirmed the freeze on Aug 23, 2024.
On July 15, the Supreme Court allowed Gupta to withdraw his special leave petition (SLP) challenging non-bailable warrants that the central agency has pursued against him in the AgustaWestland money-laundering investigation.
The SLP had questioned a Delhi High Court judgment of 4 November 2025. The HC had dismissed Gupta’s plea to cancel the non-bailable warrant issued against him on August 29, 2020 by an additional chief metropolitan magistrate.