Panaji: The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Monday set aside the 2018 order of cognisance issued by the Special PMLA court against PWD Minister Digambar Kamat (then chief minister) and former chief minister Churchill Alemao (then PWD minister) in the 2015 Louis Berger money laundering case filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Justice Ashish S Chavan said the order taking cognisance and the order issuing process dated July 21, 2018, stand set aside. The court held that the cognisance order could not be sustained as no prior sanction had been obtained at the time it was passed, relying on principles laid down by the Supreme Court in the Bibhu Prasad Acharya case.
Counsel for the applicants argued that the Special Court should not have taken cognisance under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in the absence of prior sanction under Section 197 of the CrPC.
The court said it would be open to the ED to again approach the Special Court at Mapusa to seek cognisance if sanction under Section 197(1) of the CrPC is granted in future, subject to legal and factual objections available to the applicants.
Both applicants had challenged the common order on identical grounds, and the HC disposed of both revision applications through a single order. The applicants are arraigned as co-accused in a complaint filed by the ED under Section 44(1)(b) of the PMLA, pending before the Special Court at Mapusa.
The ED had registered an Enforcement Case Information Report on August 7, 2015, against the Goa ministers, Louis Berger and others to probe the financial aspects of the 2010 case.
The case relates to a US-based consultancy firm that admitted to paying bribes to secure contracts for water and sewerage projects in Goa and Guwahati.
The prosecution had alleged that Kamat and Alemao delayed the file related to the JICA consultancy project. It further alleged that Kamat, in connivance with Alemao and others, concealed key documents and received Rs 1.2 crore, while Alemao received Rs 75 lakh as illegal gratification from Louis Berger International Inc.
