New Delhi: Enforcement Directorate chief Rahul Navin Thursday conceded the pileup of money laundering cases in the past few years, saying that concerted efforts are being made to complete investigations into those cases in the ongoing financial year.
Filing prosecution complaints in these cases and prayers for confiscation of properties which are proceeds of crime would be the focus area as prolonged investigation fails to create any deterrence on criminals and rather brings criticism to the agency, he told his officers and heads of fellow investigating agencies such as the CBI on the foundation day of the ED.
“We acknowledge candidly that several PMLA investigations are pending for a very long time, and one of the focus areas this year would be to undertake efforts to complete the investigation and file the final prosecution complaint and prayer for confiscation of criminal property before the special courts. We understand that long pending investigations may fail to create deterrence and instead attract criticism,” Navin said in his opening remarks at the ED Foundation Day event.
Established on 1 May, 1956 with the primary goal of curbing misuse and illegal flows of foreign exchange, the ED was further empowered after the enactment of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2003. Later, the government also entrusted the agency as the nodal agency to deal with economic fugitive offenders with enactment of Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018
Additionally, Navin said that the agency would focus on acts of violations of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) by firms and would ensure their accountability in following rules, regulations, notifications, circulars, directives and orders issued by the central government and the Reserve Bank of India in letter and spirit.
A similar admission and concerted efforts on long pendency of cases was also promised by the CBI director Praveen Sood earlier last month when he had said that the agency should not take pride in only registration of cases when it has been faulted for delays and pendency.
“We can’t take pride only in the registration of cases. The CBI has always been faulted for delays and pendency. We disposed off a record number of 10,466 cases against an inflow of 836 cases thereby bringing the pendency to an all-time low of 970 cases. Our conviction rate has been around 70 percent,” Sood had said in a similar setting on the occasion of CBI foundation day.
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‘Delays in adjudication attributable to general judicial delay’
Giving detailed account of the ED’s performance over the years since the PMLA came into force in July 2005, Navin said that there was a step up in enforcement activities since 2014 and that the number of cases recorded per year shooting to around 500 cases compared to just 200 PMLA cases recorded till 31 March 2014.
He further said that the PMLA was largely ineffective in initial years and was used predominantly in cases related to drugs. The agency, the senior IRS officer said, filed its first prosecution complaint only in 2012—nearly seven years after PMLA came into force.
In the last financial year 2024-25, he said, the agency recorded 775 new ECIR investigations were launched and filed 333 prosecution complaints. Thirty-four individuals were convicted under PMLA in the last one year while 1,739 cases are at various stages of trial, the ED chief said.
Additionally, the process of restoration of assets to the rightful owners from the accused persons would only accelerate in the ongoing year after restitution of around Rs 15,261 crore in 30 cases during 2024-25 .
Delays in the judicial proceedings in these cases are due to general delay in the judicial process as well as the complex nature of money laundering cases in which the fate of the predicate offence holds a key role, the ED director said.
There have been only three acquittals out of 47 cases decided so far by the courts, he said.
“Nonetheless, it is a matter of great satisfaction that in cases where courts have reached a verdict, the outcomes have overwhelmingly supported the strength of our enforcement actions,” the ED director asserted.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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