The Bombay High Court on Friday allowed the Adjudicating Authority under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to pass an order regarding attachment of assets belonging to former Home Minister Anil Deshmukh and his family.

However, the court directed that no coercive steps should be taken till January 10 or without the HC's permission.

A division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and the Madhav Jamdar modified December 6 order by which they had restrained the Authority from passing final orders.

The court was hearing Anil Deshmukh's wife - Aarti Deshmukh's petition challenging the ED's provisional attachment of assets worth Rs 4.2 crores. The 72-year-old NCP leader is still in judicial custody in connection to the PMLA case.

In the plea, Aarti Deshmukh had claimed the composition of the adjudicating authority under the PMLA was improper. The authority is supposed to include a chairperson and two members, one of whom has to be mandatorily from law background. At present, the authority comprises just a single member who is not from the law background.

On Tuesday, the Enforcement Directorate raised a grievance before the Bombay High Court that it was not heard before the order was passed by the HC restraining the adjudicating authority from deciding on the provisional attachment of assets of former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh.

ED has provisionally attached immovable assets worth Rs.4.2 crore allegedly belonging to Deshmukh and his family members under the PMLA. It can provisionally attach assets considered to be proceeds of money laundering for 30 days and an adjudicating authority either confirms of declines it.

Moreover, Sanjiv Palande - Deshmukh's personal secretary, along with Kundan Shinde (Deshmukh's personal assistant) have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the money laundering of Rs 4 crore.

Earlier in April, in an 8-page letter to CM Thackeray, Param Bir Singh alleged that Sachin Vaze had been given a target of “accumulating Rs 100 crores a month” from 1,750 bars, restaurants and other establishments in Mumbai - collecting Rs 2-3 lakhs from each.

He added that the then-home minister had said that a monthly collection of Rs 40-50 crores were achievable from such establishments and the rest could be “collected from other sources”.

Deshmukh refuted all “extortion allegations” and later resigned after the HC allowed a CBI probe into Singh's allegations. Param Bir Singh himself has multiple extortion cases slapped against him, but has gotten interim protection from Supreme Court.

Image Credit: PTI