A court in Punjab's Mohali has convicted an 80-year-old retired Indian Air Force (IAF) official and his 77-year-old associate for money laundering in a 2008 case related to possession of cocaine, sentencing them to three years of rigorous imprisonment under the anti-money laundering law.
Special Judge Hardip Singh, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 each on the two while pronouncing the order on September 3.
Dara Singh, who served in the IAF for 29 years and retired as a junior warrant officer (JWO), and his associate Gurdarshan Singh were booked by the SAS Nagar (Mohali) police in August 2008 for possessing 1.23 kg of cocaine worth Rs 50 lakh at the time.
The police also seized two bank cheques that Dara Singh gave to Gurdarshan Singh "to purchase the said contraband". The cheques had a combined value of Rs 10 lakh.
ED takes up money laundering case
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) booked the two under the PMLA in October 2019 and filed a chargesheet against them in October 2022, classifying the drugs and the cheques as proceeds of crime.
The court ruled that "these cheques being the outcome of the dealings between both the accused in that case are to be considered as proceeds of crime and the arguments of learned defence counsels are liable to be discarded."
"As such, this court reaches at the conclusion that both the accused have committed an offence defined under Section 3 of PMLA Act and punishable under Section 4 of the PMLA Act and accordingly, both the accused are convicted under Section 4 of PMLA Act," the order said.
Defence argues no drug money was involved
It added that, considering the convicts had been facing proceedings for the last 13 years while out on bail in the police case, the detention period already undergone would be set off against the substantive sentence of imprisonment.
The defence argued that the recovered contraband and cheques were not proceeds of crime "as there in no drug money involved in the scheduled offence (police case)" and that nowhere it has been stated that any amount was "exchanged or earned" by the accused in the transaction of the scheduled offence.
The ED countered that the term property includes any kind of property used in the commission of an offence under the PMLA or any of the scheduled offences.
Convicts seek leniency
During the hearing on the quantum of sentence, the two accused pleaded with the court to take a "lenient" view, considering they were the sole breadwinners for their families, suffered from various ailments, and maintained they were "innocent" because the police case was recorded "falsely" against them.
Court records accessed by PTI show that a trial court convicted the two in the police case in March 2015.
Dara Singh, who was re-employed by the Punjab Technical Education Board where he served for nine years, challenged his conviction before the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The court suspended his sentence and the appeal is pending.