Madras HC stays ED proceedings against film producer bizman

Chennai, Jun 20 (PTI) The Madras High Court on Friday stayed all further proceedings, pursuant to the Enforcement Directorate's authorisation to conduct search and seizure, against film producer Akash Baskaran and businessman Vikram Ravindran in the alleged Rs 1,000 crore TASMAC money laundering case.
    A division bench comprising Justices M S Ramesh and V Lakshminarayanan granted the interim stay on the petitions filed by Baskaran and Vikram, challenging the action of the ED.
    Senior counsels Vijay Narayanan and Abudukumar submitted that the petitioners have no involvement with the TASMAC operations at all and in the alleged 41 FIRs lodged by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) for the scheduled offences, no independent allegation or predicate offence has been registered against the petitioners and therefore questioned the validity of the invocation of Section 17 of the PMLA.
    In its order, the bench said since the petitioners had totally denied any involvement relating to the scheduled offences, it had called upon the Special Public Prosecutor to produce before it the materials forming the basis of information in their possession, which has led them to believe that the petitioners had committed an act, which constitutes money laundering or is in possession of any proceeds of crime, records or property, in a sealed cover, through an interim order dated June 13, 2025.
    On June 17, the SPP produced a sealed cover along with an undated and unsigned brief explanation note along with supporting materials, claiming it to be the information they possess about the petitioners, which led them to initiate the search operations, the bench added.
    The bench said the brief explanation note, however, also does not relate to the information or materials which the Directorate claims to have in possession in their earlier notes on "reason to believe" produced on June 17. Neither does this brief explanation note disclose any information in the possession of the Directorate, which authorises them to conduct the search and seizure operations in the petitioners premises, the bench added.
    The bench said when it indicated to Additional Solicitor General S V Raju that whatever the information/materials they had produced before it in the sealed cover had no nexus to their original claims of being in possession of incriminating information, he submitted that the 41 FIRs, relating to the scheduled offences registered against the TASMAC officials, were the information in their possession, which authorises them to conduct the search and seizure operation.
    "When we expressed to the Additional Solicitor General that we do not approve his claim in this regard, the Additional Solicitor General submitted that they had already directed the respondent (ED) to de-seal the petitioner's premises (Vikram). His statement is hereby recorded. The Additional Solicitor General sought four weeks time to file a counter affidavit before us," the bench added.
    The bench said, "On a prima facie view, we find that the Authorisation No.96/2025, dated May 15,2025 and the consequential sealing of the petitioner's premises by the respondent, is wholly without authority or jurisdiction, since no incriminating information or material was in their possession on May 15, 2025 when the respondent had authorised for search and seizure operations and on May 16, 2025 when the respondent had sealed the petitioner's premises".
    The bench said it consciously refrained from describing the alleged material or information claimed to be in the possession of the ED for obvious reasons. However, it would suffice to state that the so-called information produced by the Directorate before it has absolutely no semblance of an information, which may have led them to believe that the petitioner may be involved in the offence of money laundering.
    "In the light of the above observations, there shall be an order of interim stay of all further proceedings, pursuant to the respondent's Authorization No.96/2025 dated May, 15,.2025, pending disposal of this Writ Petition", the bench added.
    The bench said there shall be a further interim order to the ED to return all the seized properties of the petitioners, pursuant to the search and seizure operations conducted on May 16, pending final disposal of this Writ Petition. The petitioners shall not tamper or alienate the digital devices that has been returned to him/to be returned to him, pending final disposal of this writ petition.
    The bench posted to July 16, for further hearing of the case.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)