Overview
- The Division Bench reserved its judgment and orally recorded an undertaking from the ED to maintain status quo for the appellants until the verdict is pronounced on June 5, a step the court took after hearing full arguments on Monday.
- CMRL, represented by senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, says the ED lacked jurisdiction to begin a PMLA probe because no predicate FIR or complaint existed when the agency registered its ECIR.
- The ED, through Additional Solicitor General A.R.L. Sundaresan and special counsel, has argued the agency can start inquiries and issue summons under the PMLA without a pre-registered FIR and called for the power to collect evidence.
- The temporary protection recorded by the court applies only to the appellants named in the appeal and does not bar the ED from taking action against non-parties or from carrying out non-precipitative investigative work.
- The dispute follows a wider probe that began with Income Tax searches and a 2023 SFIO referral, centers on about Rs.1.72 crore in alleged payments from CMRL to Exalogic owned by Veena Vijayan, and could reshape how agencies time PMLA interventions and affect political fallout.