NEW DELHI: The Appellate Tribunal has dismissed an appeal filed by Karti P. Chidambaram, son of senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram, challenging the attachment of properties worth over Rs 22 crore by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in an alleged money laundering case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
A two-member bench comprising Shri Balesh Kumar and Shri Rajesh Malhotra upheld the adjudicating authority’s decision dated 29 March 2019, which had confirmed the provisional attachment of Chidambaram’s properties.
The attached properties include a 50 per cent share in a premium residential property at 115-A, Block 172, Jor Bagh, New Delhi, worth ₹16.05 crore, and seven bank accounts with Indian Overseas Bank’s Nungambakkam branch in Chennai containing amounts ranging from ₹62.34 lakh to ₹93.51 lakh each.
The appeal centred on a technical legal question regarding the timing of the prosecution complaint filed by the ED. Chidambaram’s legal team argued that the enforcement agency violated Section 8(3)(a) of the PMLA by filing its prosecution complaint on 1 June 2020, 430 days after the confirmation order, thereby exceeding the statutory limit of 365 days.
The defence contended that this delay rendered the continued attachment of properties “bad in law” and demanded their immediate release.
The key point of the tribunal’s decision hinged on the Supreme Court’s suo motu order dated 10 January 2022, which extended limitation periods during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Supreme Court had ordered that the period from 15 March 2020 to 28 February 2022 would be excluded for limitation purposes in all judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings.
The ED’s counsel argued that the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic justified the delay. They pointed out that the Delhi High Court had suspended court functioning during this period, making it impossible to file the prosecution complaint within the original timeline.
The tribunal rejected Chidambaram’s arguments, drawing a crucial distinction between personal liberty cases and property attachment matters.
The tribunal noted that interim orders passed on 1 August 2019, and confirmed on 3 September 2019, had maintained the status quo regarding the attached properties, particularly protecting Chidambaram from eviction from his Jor Bagh residence. However, with the dismissal of the appeal, these interim protections have now lapsed.
The ED had initially provisionally attached the property on 10 October 2018, which was subsequently confirmed by the adjudicating authority on 29 March 2019. It is part of the ongoing money laundering investigations against Karti Chidambaram.
