The High Court of Bombay at Goa on Monday granted relief to former Goa chief minister Digambar Kamat and former public works department (PWD) minister Churchill Alemao, who served in his cabinet in the money laundering case filed in relation to the Louis Berger bribery case.
The high court, while deciding separate criminal revision applications filed by Kamat and Alemao, set aside the order of the Special Court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 to take cognisance of the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had filed against the duo, on grounds that the ED had failed to secure prior sanction from the government before initiating prosecution.
Under section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), no court shall take cognisance except with the previous sanction of an offence when any person who is or was a judge or magistrate or a public servant not removable from his office save by or with the sanction of the government is accused of any offence alleged to have been committed by him while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duty.
“The learned Special Court ought not to have taken cognisance of the offence under the PMLA in view of the fact that on the date that the cognisance was taken, no prior sanction was obtained by the Respondent ED as stipulated by law under Section 197 of CrPC,” both the applicants raised via a common argument.
In response, the counsel for the ED conceded that when the Special Court took cognisance of ED’s ECIR, no sanction was obtained from the government.
“As can be seen from the definition itself, the previous sanction as envisaged in section 197(1) of CrPC is a condition precedent to the court taking cognisance of an offence when the accused is a public servant and the offence alleged to have committed by him has been committed while acting or purporting to act in the discharge of his official duty,” Justice Ashish Chavan ruled.
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“It is evident that the applicants before this court were public servants at the time when the cognisance was taken by the learned Special Court i.e. order dated 21.07.2018. Thus, the provisions of section 197(1) of CrPC are squarely attracted to the applicants. This court finds merit in the submission of the applicants that the cognisance order cannot be sustained in the light of the fact that no previous sanction was obtained on the date on which the order taking cognisance was passed. In view thereof, the order taking cognisance and the order issuing process dated 21.07.2018 is set aside,” judge said.
Kamat and Alemao were initially booked on charges that they demanded for and accepted bribes of ₹50 lakh to facilitate speedy clearances for the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) funded water supply management project and subsequently saw a case of money laundering registered against them by ED.
Cases were registered after both Kamat at Alemao were raided in pre-dawn home visits back in 2015 during which several financial documents were seized.
Subsequently the ED attached moveable and immoveable properties worth ₹1.95 crore belonging to Kamat and Alemao.
The case came to light after two top officials of Louis Berger Group in 2015 pleaded guilty before a US Court for offering bribes of $3.9 million to secure contracts in Asian countries including India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Kuwait.
A contract for a water and sewerage project featured in the list. Names of the officials and politicians in Goa who were bribed were however not revealed to the US Court.
The admission led to a probe by the Goa crime branch with Kamat, who was then with the Congress and Alemao subsequently made the prime accused in the case.
