PRAYAGRAJ The Allahabad high court has actually held that properties bought from unidentified income sources can not be presumed to be stemmed from profits of criminal activity supplied in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
< source media ="(min-width:768px)" alt ="The court in its July 1 order also observed that merely alleging possession of assets from an unexplained source would not automatically establish that they were proceeds of crime under the PMLA. (For Representation)" > < img src ="https://www.hindustantimes.com/ht-img/img/2026/07/07/400x225/The-court-in-its-July-1-order-also-observed-that-m_1783443316027.jpg"alt ="The court in its July 1 order also observed that merely alleging possession of assets from an unexplained source would not automatically establish that they were proceeds of crime under the PMLA. (For Representation)"title ="The court in its July 1 order also observed that merely alleging possession of assets from an unexplained source would not automatically establish that they were proceeds of crime under the PMLA. (For Representation)"width ="360"height ="202"loading ="eager">“An individual might have properties originated from unidentified income, nevertheless, that by itself can not be presumed that the aforementioned possessions are stemmed from schedule offense, the high court stated.
With this observation, Justice Vikram D Chauhan gave bail to one Sanjay Kumar alias Sanjay Dhiman, an implicated in a cash laundering case signed up under the PMLA Act, holding that, at the phase of thinking about bail, the prosecution had not adequately showed recognizable earnings of criminal activity emerging from a set up offense. The court likewise remembered of the candidate’s extended custody and the reality that the examination had actually currently been finished.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) started procedures based upon several FIRs connecting to declared prohibited mining activities in Himachal Pradesh. According to the company, funds created from those activities were supposedly utilized to acquire a stone crusher system in Uttar Pradesh, which was later on declared to have actually been included in unlawful mining-related deals.
Throughout the hearing, the counsel for the candidate argued that he was not called in the Himachal Pradesh FIRs and mentioned that examination in those cases had actually led to closure reports, numerous of which had actually currently been accepted by the qualified courts. It was likewise sent that he had actually stayed in custody considering that November 18, 2024, while the trial was yet to start.
The ED opposed the bail plea, preserving that the candidate had actually contributed in the supposed laundering of funds which the stone crusher in Uttar Pradesh had actually been obtained utilizing cash created through prohibited mining.
“The ‘earnings of criminal offense’ are properties originated from criminal activity associating with arrange offense”, the court stated. It kept in mind that in today case, the prosecution had actually not determined any particular possessions supposedly originated from the criminal activity linked to the arranged offenses, especially in relation to the candidate.
The court in its July 1 order likewise observed that simply declaring ownership of possessions from an inexplicable source would not instantly develop that they were earnings of criminal activity under the PMLA. It mentioned that such problems might include other legal repercussions however might not, on their own, please the statutory requirements of the Act.