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Learned senior counsel for the petitioners has also submitted that except the sale and purchase of the land by the 03 land owning companies, the petitioners or the company neither ever applied for obtaining any licence for development of any colony nor ever applied to the government for withdrawal of the land from the acquisition proceedings as it was a simple investment made by the petitioners.

It is further submitted that in the meantime, the proceedings under the PMLA Act, were initiated by the Enforcement Directorate, Chandigarh, as per ECIR No.04/CDZO/2015 dated 24.09.2016.

(c) Learned senior counsel for the petitioners has next argued that the "Schedule" as defined in Section 2(1)(x) of the PMLA Act, is the "Schedule" of the Act and the "Schedule Offence" as per Section 2(1)(y) of the PMLA Act, is the offences specified under Part A of the Schedule and the offences specified under Part B of the Schedule.

(d) Learned senior counsel for the petitioners has next submitted that in the "scheduled offence" wherein the CBI has registered an FIR and during the investigation, has recorded the statement of the petitioners under Section 161 Cr.P.C., the petitioners are cited as witness No.300 and 301, respectively. It is also submitted that when the 1st R.C. was registered under the PMLA Act, the statement of the petitioners were recorded under 10 of 34 Section 50 of the PMLA Act. However, the petitioners are nominated as an accused in the 2nd complaint, filed in exercise of powers under Section 44 of the PMLA Act, though, the prosecution by CBI and by the Enforcement Directorate is to be tried together by the same Judge, therefore, the prosecution of the petitioners by the Enforcement Directorate is mala fide as at no point of time, in the investigation by the CBI, the petitioners were found to be accused persons and rather they are cited as a witness.

In reply, learned senior counsel for the petitioners has argued that in pursuance of the direction by the Hon'ble Supreme in Rameshwar's case (supra), the CBI has conducted a detailed enquiry and cited the petitioners as witnesses as no evidence was found against the petitioners that they are the middlemen. It is further submitted that in the first prosecution complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate as well as in the supplementary prosecution complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate, the petitioners were never arraigned as accused and it is only in the second prosecution complaint that the petitioners have been arraigned as an accused, without there being any evidence against them as they have made similar statement before the 27 of 34 CBI under Section 161 Cr.P.C. as well as under Section 50 of the PMLA Act that they never applied for any licence for development of any project and have purchased the land on the advice of Lalit Modi and later on, the companies of the petitioners were purchased by M/s. A.B.W. Group through Atul Bansal, who is an accused even in CBI proceedings. Further, it is argued that in view of the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in J. Sekar @ Sekar Reddy's case (supra), the chances of proving the allegations even for the purpose of prosecution under the PMLA Act are very bleak and therefore, the prosecution is liable to be quashed as no prima facie case on the face of second prosecution complaint is made out against the petitioners.

(k) In view of the judgment in Gagandeep Singh's case (supra) and Jafar Mohammed Hasanfatta's case (supra), this Court find that no "scheduled offence"

was made out against the petitioners as per CBI investigation and therefore, the proceedings under the PMLA Act, on the basis of the allegations in the impugned complaint are not established against the petitioners.
In view of what have been discussed hereinbefore, the present petition is allowed and the impugned prosecution complaint No.ECIR/CDZO/04/2015 titled as "Directorate of Enforcement vs Smt. Sona Bansal and others", as well as the order dated 30.06.2020 passed by the Special Judge, PMLA, and subsequent proceedings arising therefrom are hereby quashed qua the petitioners, who are accused Nos.5 and 6.