New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) should not treat the discharge of accused persons in a predicate offence as the end of the money-laundering investigation as well; rather it should study the discharge orders and pursue investigative agencies with fresh inputs, Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju urged officials of the agency on Friday.
A predicate offence is a criminal case registered and investigated by state police forces or by investigative agencies like the National Investigation Agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or the Narcotics Control Bureau. According to several Supreme Court judgments, a predicate offence is a mandatory requirement for initiation and continuation of a money-laundering case under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
Speaking at the ED’s foundation day, the ASG made a distinction between acquittals and discharges of accused persons in predicate cases, pressing the central agency to continue pursuing the money-laundering angle of the related probe.
“Look at the discharge, find the reason, go to the agency again,” Raju urged a hall full of ED officials while sharing the dais with the agency’s chief, Rahul Navin, and Revenue Secretary Arvind Shrivastava.
This, he said, was allowed under the purview of the criminal justice system, which does not stop the probing agencies from investigating even in cases of discharge. However, the laws bar investigations against the same set of accused persons in cases of acquittal because a person cannot be tried more than once in the same case, he said.
Raju’s remarks come in the backdrop of a Special CBI court in Delhi discharging all 23 accused in the Delhi Excise Policy Case, including former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia.
Similarly, he urged the agency to pursue intervention in the event of case closure by the investigative agencies probing the predicate cases. “ED should make an intervention and challenge the agency for collusion with the accused,” he said in reference to closure reports filed by agencies in predicate offences.
Delivering the welcome address, ED Director Rahul Navin raised a similar point about the ongoing legal debate over the fate of trial proceedings in money-laundering cases compared with those in primary cases.
“Of course, there are legal challenges before the courts, the most important being whether the trial in money laundering cases should take a pause till the trial in predicate offence gets concluded or continue on a standalone basis in consonance with international standards and Financial Action Task Force guidelines,” Navin said in his keynote address, referring to the list of legal challenges being faced by the agency.
He highlighted that the agency had around 2,400 cases pending before the special courts and expressed confidence that all of them would result in conviction of the accused charged by the agency.
The event was presided over by Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary.
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Pendency problem
ThePrint had reported last year that the ED chief emphasised the long pendency of money-laundering cases and said that concerted efforts were being made to address the issue on the occasion of the last edition of the ED Foundation Day event.
Providing statistics on the agency’s performance on the specific metric, Navin said that the agency filed 812 prosecution complaints, including 155 supplementary complaints under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act during the financial year 2025-26, nearly twice the number filed in the previous financial year.
“To put this in perspective, out of all the prosecution complaints ever filed by the directorate, over 41 per cent have been filed in just the last two years. This acceleration in investigative and prosecutorial output is not incidental; it is the result of deliberate, sustained and intelligence-driven effort,” Navin said.
Similarly, he said that the quantum of assets attached by the agency in the recently-concluded financial year stood at Rs 81,422 crore—an increase of 170 per cent over the previous year.
Navin highlighted the changing landscape of financial crimes and the widening scope of the agency’s investigations over the years, during which the agency has taken up several cases related to cybercrimes, cryptocurrency fraud, terror financing, and narcotics trafficking. “A few years ago, our enforcement work was predominantly centred on bank fraud, large corporate fraud, and real estate fraud. Sustained action by investigative agencies, complemented by landmark government initiatives such as the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and the Real Estate Regulation and Development Act, has brought about a visible decline in such offences,” he said, adding: “Today, the criminal landscape is defined by cryptocurrency fraud, cyber-enabled financial crimes, terror financing, anti-national activities, and narcotics trafficking.”
Navin further highlighted the agency’s impetus to pursue cases against the fugitives under the purview of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act and said that proceedings under the stringent act, which allows for the confiscation of all assets of such fugitives in the country and abroad, have been initiated against 54 individuals. Of them, 21 have been declared fugitive economic offenders by the special courts, he said.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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