Bombay High Court Grants Relief To Goa Ex-CMs Digambar Kamat, Churchill Alemao In Louis Berger PMLA Case

The Bombay High Court at Goa has recently set aside a Special Court order taking cognizance against former Goa Chief Minister and current PWD Minister Digambar Kamat and Former Chief minister Churchill Alemao in the Louis Berger-linked money laundering case.

The court held that prior government sanction to prosecute them, as required under Section 197 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for public servants, had not been obtained before cognizance was taken.

A single-judge bench of Justice Ashish S. Chavan held that the cognizance order dated July 21, 2018 could not be sustained. The Court noted that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had not obtained the mandatory prior sanction when cognizance was taken.

“In view of the aforesaid facts and in the light of the guiding principle of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Bibhu Prasad Acharya (supra), this Court inds merit in the submission of the Applicants that the cognizance order cannot be sustained in the light of the fact that no previous sanction was obtained on the date on which the order taking cognizance was passed,” the Court said.

The case arose from an FIR registered on July 21, 2015, which formed the predicate offence for proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Based on the FIR, the ED registered an ECIR on August 7, 2015. It later filed a complaint before the Special Court at Mapusa on July 12, 2018.

The Special Court took cognizance on July 21, 2018. It framed charges under Section 3 of the PMLA on July 22, 2021.

The applicants challenged the cognizance order on the ground that the ED had not obtained prior government sanction to prosecute them before cognizance was taken. The ED also conceded before the High Court that no sanction had been obtained at that stage.

The High Court held that the applicants were public servants when cognizance was taken. It therefore held that Section 197(1) CrPC squarely applied to them. The Court accordingly set aside the cognizance and process issuance order.

The court also granted liberty to the ED to approach the Special Court again if sanction is obtained in the future. It clarified that the applicants would be free to raise all legal and factual objections available to them.