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was whether the prosecution for the scheduled offence should precede the trial
of offence under the PMLA.
19. The contention was that an offence under Section 3 of the Money
Laundering Act was dependent upon the scheduled offences. It was contented
that, unless the scheduled offences are not established, one cannot determine the
proceeds of crime and therefore, unless proceeds of crime was established by
putting the accused on trial, any prosecution of the person under the Money
Laundering Act, would be premature and would be an exercise in futility as one
cannot be convicted for offence under the Money Laundering Act, without there
being any conviction of the person for the scheduled offences.
20. The High Court noted that the Act was silent as to whether trial
under the scheduled offences must precede the trial of offence under Money
Laundering Act or both the offences being tried simultaneously or trial of offence
under the Money Laundering Act should precede trial under Prevention of Cor-
ruption Act. The Court was of the definite view that the trial of offence under the
Money Laundering Act can never precede the trial of scheduled offences as the
prosecution needs to establish that, one having committed scheduled offences
has acquired property through proceeds of crime and unless that is established,
any trial which proceeds under the Money Laundering Act would be pre-mature
and that, if it proceeds, the Court will have to assume that the accused is guilty
for the scheduled offences, which would be against the spirit of the Act, and
therefore, that option never lies with the Court.
21. The other option available to the special court was to proceed with
the trial under the scheduled offences as well as under the Money Laundering
Act simoltaneously. As mentioned earlier, the scheme of the Money Laundering
Act beyond doubt indicates that, it does not contemplate a trial of predicate of-
fences and the offence under the Money Laundering Act by the special court
simultaneously, in every case. Though under Section 43(2) of Money Laundering
Act, it is clarified that, while trying an offence under the Act, special court shall
also try an offence, other than an offence under sub-section (1), with which the
accused may be charged under the Cr.P.C., the Parliament in its wisdom has not
extended it to a trial of scheduled offence, simultaneously by the special court
under the Money Laundering Act. On the other hand, Section 44(1)(c) stipulates
that the committal of the scheduled offence to the special court under Money
Laundering Act can be ordered only on an application by the authority under the
Money Laundering Act, which is authorized to file a complaint under the Act.
Conversely, it implies that in the absence of any such application, both courts can
independently proceed with the trials.
22. It is hence evident that, Parliament was conscious of the conse-
quences of stipulating that both predicate offence and the offence under the
Money Laundering Act shall be tried by the special court under the Act, though
the offences under both Statutes are inextricably interlinked. Otherwise, there is
no reason as to why the Act should make the committal, conditional on an appli-
cation by the prosecutor.
23. The procedural difficulty that might arise in the absence of above
statutory provision can easily be visualized. In the case at hand, the special court
under the Money Laundering Act was incompetent to try the offence under the
Prevention of Corruption Act, which can be tried only by the special Judge ap-
pointed under Section 3 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The above view has
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