A particular court docket has discharged all eight accused within the first-ever case registered beneath the Prevention of Cash Laundering Act (PMLA) in Mumbai by the Enforcement Directorate. Then managing director of city-based OPM Worldwide and others have been discharged “in absence of a predicate offence” within the case registered in 2008.
Below the PMLA, the ED can provoke a probe solely when there exists a previous First Data Report of a scheduled offence — additionally referred to as predicate offence — towards an individual or entity.
In 2008, the ED booked OPM Worldwide, its director and others in a PMLA case based mostly on a case registered by the Narcotics Management Bureau (NCB) beneath the Narcotic Medicine and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
This was the primary case registered within the metropolis beneath the PMLA.
However the accused have been finally discharged from the drug case.
On April 15, particular PMLA choose M G Deshpande discharged all of the accused because the `predicate offence’ didn’t survive. The detailed order turned out there on Wednesday.
Omprakash Nogaja, then MD of OPM Worldwide, claimed in his discharge plea that he was neither concerned within the NDPS case nor was he concerned within the era of proceeds of crime.
As laid down by the Supreme Courtroom, a PMLA case can’t be continued if the accused is discharged from the predicate offence, argued his lawyer Ayaz Khan.
Particular public prosecutor R R Yadav opposed the plea, saying the accused “was actively concerned within the legal exercise regarding the scheduled offence by which POC of crime have been generated”.
The court docket held that the ED case towards Nogaja cannot proceed in mild of the SC judgement.
Moreover Nogaja and OPM Worldwide, Shyam Modani, Shriniwas Modani, Umesh Bangur, Radhamohan Lakhotia, Shantilal Pangaria and Subh Laxmi Synted Restricted have been additionally discharged.
OPM Worldwide used to import items equivalent to timber, pulses and rice. In 2008, the NCB seized 200 kg of cocaine hidden in a consignment allegedly ordered by the agency from Ecuador.
(This report has been revealed as a part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Aside from the headline, no modifying has been accomplished within the copy by ABP Dwell.)
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