‘Are these Dawood Ibrahim’s ill-gotten gains?’

Don’s mother and sister had challenged confiscation move.

Dawood Ibrahim.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday wanted to know from underworld don Dawood Ibrahim’s family if a piece of Mumbai property it owned, and now facing confiscation, is part of the “ill-gotten gains” of India’s most wanted fugitive.

“Are these ill-gotten properties?” Chief Justice T S Thakur asked the family’s lawyer.

Before counsel could respond, Additional Solicitor-General P S Patwalia told the Bench that the petitioners were the mother and sister of Dawood, as if the fact was self-explanatory.

The don’s mother Amina Bi Kaskar and his sister Hasina Ibrahim Parkar, both now deceased, had challenged the government’s move, after the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, to confiscate property allegedly acquired through Dawood’s ill-gotten wealth.

The move to seize the family’s property was based on orders issued under the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act (SAFEMA).

The family’s petitions in the Delhi High Court against the tribunal order had failed.

The government had maintained that the decision to seize the assets came after the family failed to establish that the property purchase was bona fide.

It had argued that provisions of SAFEMA extended not only to the don, who fled the country, but also to the assets of relatives.

Denying the family’s claim that it was not served proper notices before the forfeiture order was passed in 1998, the government contended that the appeal against forfeiture was now time-barred and had no merit whatsoever.