The State government is empowered to attach any property connected with offences under the Tamil Nadu Protection of Interests of Depositors (In Financial Establishments) Act, 1997 irrespective of its owner being one of the accused or not, the Madras High Court Bench here has held.
Justice S.S. Sundar passed the ruling while dismissing a writ petition filed by T. Pappa seeking a direction to the Home Secretary, Karur District Revenue Officer and Economic Offences Wing to withdraw an order attaching 3,108 sq.ft of land owned by her at Mookanakurichi village in Karur district.
Though the petitioner claimed that she had been discharged from all the cases registered against her under the TANPID Act and hence she was entitled to get the attachment removed, the judge found that there was a discrepancy since records showed that she continued to be an accused in one of those cases.
Nevertheless, not going into the issue of whether she was an accused or not, the judge said that a reading of Section 3 of the Act indicated that the government had power to attach property alleged to have been procured either in the name of a financial establishment or in the name of any other person from and out of the deposits collected by the establishment.
“It is not necessary that when the government attached the property, it should also be established that the registered owner of the property is actually involved in the offence punishable under the provisions of TANPID Act,” the judge said.
Further pointing out that the Act provided a remedy to the property owners to get their properties released from attachment proceedings by approaching the special courts constituted for hearing cases booked under the legislation, the judge gave liberty to the writ petition to approach the jurisdictional special court.
