Garima Singh vs Joint Director, Directorate Of Enforcement, Delhi

MP-PMLA-4802/DLI/2018 (Stay)

Vide the impugned order dated 11.07.2018, the adjudicating authority has attached six properties belonging to the appellant and her husband. The stay

petition has been filed in the present appeal with regard to only one property as at S. No. 6 of the adjudication order i.e. House No. L-1601, 16th Floor,

JMD Garden, Gurgaon, Haryana. The learned counsel for the appellant pleaded that they have a strong prima facie case. He stated that the property

whose value is Rs. 75,00,000/-was brought from the money given as gift to the appellant during her marriage. The department has not been able to

establish any offence with regard to the appellant or how the present property can be treated as proceeds of crime. As the department has not been

able to link any offence to her (the appellant) the burden of proof therefore does not lie on the appellant. He also stated that the whole case was

booked against her husband against whom there are number of FIRs lodged for offences of murder, extortion etc. and we need to first go into the

history of the FIRs. They have not pleaded any undue/financial hardship.

The learned counsel for the respondent stated that the FIRs are not before this Tribunal and hence this argument was not valid. The very fact that this

property was in the name of the appellant and one Dilip Singh who the appellant herself in a statement has accepted as an alias of her husband

Akhilesh Singh and has identified Dilip Singh to be Akhilesh Singh from the photographs, shows that it is very much proceed of crime. The

adjudicating authority has in fact dealt with this issue in the impugned order on which the appellant is silent and has not given any counter argument.

He also mentioned that the appellant got married in 2016 and the property was bought in 2017 which is not disputed by the appellant. Hence, there is a

clear link. The burden of proof is on the appellant which has not been discharged.

Examined the case and heard the parties. It is clearly an arguable case and I do not find that the appellant has made a prima facie case in their favour

in as much as the property is in the joint name of her and her husband, that the property has been bought after her marriage and that FIRs are lodged

against her husband for various offences including extortion and is also a defendant in the present impugned order of the adjudicating authority, and

that presently also he was in jail. I accordingly do not find any reason to stay the impugned order. No undue/financial hardship has been pleaded.