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A Supreme Court bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and AS Oka today upheld that judgment of the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court setting aside the order of Enforcement Directorate for seizure of assets of former Goa CM and Congress party member Digambar Kamat and Trinamool Politician Churchill Alemao in a money laundering case.

Kamat was the Chief Minister of Goa from 2007 to 2012 and Alemao served as the PWD Minister in his cabinet during this period. Both of them are accused of accepting a $976,630 bribe in 2010 from officials of the US-based Louis Berger consultancy firm in exchange of granting contracts of multi-billion dollar water and sewerage project in Goa worth Rs 1,031 crore funded by the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA).

In 2015, the ED had attached the assets belonging to Kamat and Alemao totaling Rs 2 crores. The High Court while setting aside the ED order, had noted the undertaking given by Kamat and Alemao "to not sell, transfer, alienate, encumber, liquidate or encash" the assets until the conclusion of the case, which is in progress at a special court in Mapusa town on North Goa district.

When the matter came up for hearing today, Additional Solicitor General of India (ASG) Raju, appearing for the ED, submitted that the order of the Bombay High Court deserves to be set aside as the assets could be transferred by the accused during the pendency of trial and the Directorate would be left looking for assets to recover the amount laundered by the accused persons.

However, on hearing the parties, Court noted that since the parties had given an undertaking before the High Court that they will not alienate the properties during the pendency of the litigation before the trial court, therefore, in the view of the same it is not inclined to interfere with the order of the Bombay High Court.

Court further clarified that it did not make any observations on the merits of the case and the judgment of the Bombay High Court and Supreme Court will not have any impact on the trial.

Case title: Enforcement Directorate Vs Churchill Alemao & Ors