Overview
- The High Court’s May 29 order set aside the Economic Offences Wing FIR and the Enforcement Directorate’s ECIR, removing the legal basis for the specific PMLA money‑laundering proceedings tied to that FIR.
- Justice Neena Bansal Krishna held that even if the allegations were accepted in full, the essential ingredients of cheating (Section 420) and criminal breach of trust (Section 406) were not made out because no aggrieved investor complained and no entrustment or misappropriation was shown.
- The court relied on a January 2018 Ministry of Information and Broadcasting reply that online news was not covered by print‑media FDI caps and accepted that the April 2018 $1.5 million tranche was valued by standard Discounted Cash Flow methods consistent with FEMA practice.
- The judgment criticised the EOW and ED investigations as a ‘fishing and roving exercise’ and mala fide, noting earlier raids and searches in 2021 and that Purkayastha had received interim protection from arrest in June 2021.
- The ruling applies the legal principle that a PMLA action cannot survive without a valid predicate offence, it clears this case’s PMLA path while leaving other separate probes, including earlier UAPA‑linked matters, untouched and may prompt closer legal limits on enforcement agency powers and access to ECIRs.