HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday granted VANPIC Projects significant relief by ordering the Deputy Director, Directorate of Enforcement, Delhi to release the over 1316.91 acres of land in Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam district it had attached.
A bench comprising High Court Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice S Nanda ruled that while the Appellate Tribunal was correct in holding that the provisional attachment order and the adjudicating authority’s order confirming that the attachment had fundamental flaws rendering them without jurisdiction, it fell short of declaring such orders illegal.
It further erred by referring the appellant to the Special Court to seek release of the attached property since this amounts to abdicating its jurisdiction and enabling an illegality to persist, the bench ruled.
Given this, the court declared that the appellant’s appeal unequivocally needs to be accepted.
VANPIC Projects filed three petitions seeking to overturn orders made by the Appellate Tribunal under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to the limited extent of continuing the attachment of their properties and directing the respondents to release the said properties from PMLA attachment.
Since AP Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is also one of the defendants in the case, he may not intervene, the court directed. The case concerns the VANPIC project, the proponent of which businessman Nimmagadda Prasad reportedly deposited crores of rupees in Jagan’s companies. Allegedly in exchange, project contracts were given by the then government led by late YS Rajasekhara Reddy.
During the hearing, Atul Nanda, senior counsel for the appellant, argued that charge sheet No. 9, dated August 13, 2012, issued by the CBI, is incorrect and cannot withstand judicial scrutiny. Appellant is not in possession of any profits of crime, as defined in Section 2(1)(u) of the PMLA. As a result, the provisional attachment order and the original complaint, which seek to legitimise attachment by identifying the results of totally lawful and unadulterated arms length economic transactions as proceeds of crime, cannot be supported.
He indicated that the Enforcement Directorate had not presented a case for attachment of the property.
On Tuesday, the court issued its orders, directing the Enforcement Directorate to release the attached 1316.91 acres.