Coal allocation cannot amount to proceeds of crime per se under the money laundering law, the Delhi High Court Tuesday said.
The observation was made by Justice Yashwant Varma while quashing the proceedings initiated against a company by the Enforcement Directorate, including provisional attachment of properties, in connection with an alleged money laundering case arising from the allocation of a coal block to it by the authorities in 2003.
The court said that the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) seeks to confiscate assets that may be derived or obtained from criminal activity and therefore, only gains obtained by the utilization of the allocation could be viewed as proceeds of crime and not the allocation itself.
