MUMBAI: Days after refusing to discharge former Mumbai police officer Sachin Waze, a special court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Saturday rejected three more discharge pleas in the money-laundering case linked to former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh. The court held that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has placed enough material on record to proceed to trial.
Special judge Mahesh K Jadhav dismissed the applications filed by chartered accountants Vishal Khatwani and Vinod Hasani, as well as Premier Port Links Pvt Ltd, a company allegedly controlled by Deshmukh’s family.
Khatwani had argued that he was only rendering routine professional services such as audits and compliance filings. Rejecting this defence, the court held that the material on record prima facie shows that he was “not merely performing his professional duty as a chartered accountant,” but had “misused his professional expertise and knowingly facilitated money laundering.”
The judge said that statements recorded under Section 50 of the PMLA and documentary evidence indicate that Khatwani played an “active and conscious role in creating and maintaining a corporate veil for laundering operations which transcends passive routine professional work”.
On Khatwani’s argument that he had not personally received any proceeds of crime, the court pointed out that under Section 3 of the PMLA, involvement in any one of the listed activities “is sufficient to constitute the offence”. It concluded that a “strong prima facie case is made out” against Khatwani and his plea for discharge could not be granted.
The court reached similar conclusions while rejecting Hasani’s plea. He had claimed that he resigned from the firm in 2017 and had no connection with transactions that allegedly occurred later. However, the court noted the prosecution’s allegations that he “knowingly and directly indulged himself in the money laundering activities by assisting Deshmukh family in layering, laundering of proceeds of crime and integrating the same into various businesses”.
The court noted that witness statements and Hasani’s own admissions prima facie indicated his knowledge of the transactions and continued advisory involvement. It held that it was “not a fit case for discharge of the accused”.
In a separate but related order, the court rejected the discharge plea of Premier Port Links Pvt Ltd, observing that the complaint alleges the company “has got directly indulged and is actually involved in the concealment, possession, acquisition and use of proceeds of crime”.
The ED has alleged that the company received ₹2.2 crore as inter-corporate loans from Flourish Properties Pvt Ltd, allegedly funded through bogus share capital and linked to entities controlled by the Deshmukh family. The court held that compliance with company law or tax filings does not insulate an entity from liability under the PMLA and that “prima facie there is sufficient material to proceed against the accused and to frame charge”.
Across the three orders, the court reiterated that the offence of money laundering is a standalone and continuing offence, and that prosecution under the PMLA is not dependent on whether an accused was chargesheeted in the predicate CBI case.