The Enforcement Directorate has registered its highest ever attachment of properties last fiscal when it seized assets worth Rs.1,759 crore from politicians and government servants. These properties have been demarcated as “proceeds of crime.”
The ED made 127 attachments during the last financial year compared to 65 in 2012-13 and 127 in 2005-2012 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The cumulative worth of attachments since 2005 stands at a whopping Rs. 5,314 crore.
Among those against whom action has been taken are YSR Congress Party president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy and his co-accused whose properties worth Rs. 863 crore were recently attached.
Another property allegedly owned by Arun Kumar Mishra, the then Chief Engineer of the U.P. State Industrial Development Corporation — worth over Rs. 400 crore — was attached by the ED in connection with a CBI case against him.
The property was purchased at an on-paper price of Rs. 23.26 crore in 2007.
Breaking away from the past trends, the ED has attached properties of Syed Salahuddin, chief of the banned outfit Hizbul Mujahideen, in Jammu and Kashmir.
In a first, the agency has also initiated proceedings for alleged violation of trade marks, breaking laws under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, the Wildlife Protection Act, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act and the Passport Act.
The ED has also taken up cases forwarded by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.
