Punjab court convicts 80-year-old ex-IAF man in 2008 money laundering case

A court in Punjab has convicted an 80-year-old retired Indian Air Force official and his 77-year-old associate in a money laundering case linked to a 2008 cocaine seizure. The court sentenced both men to three years of rigorous imprisonment under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 each.

The conviction came from a special court in Mohali, which held that the two bank cheques linked to the alleged drug deal were proceeds of crime. The court also said the period of detention already undergone by the convicts would be set off against their substantive sentence, noting that they had been facing proceedings for the last 13 years while on bail in the police case.

Special Judge Hardip Singh pronounced the order on September 3. The convicts are Dara Singh, who served in the IAF for 29 years and retired as a junior warrant officer, and his associate Gurdarshan Singh.

The SAS Nagar police had booked the two in August 2008 for possessing 1.23 kg of cocaine, which was valued at Rs 50 lakh at the time. Police had also seized two bank cheques, with a combined value of Rs 10 lakh, which Dara Singh had given to Gurdarshan Singh "to purchase the said contraband".

The Enforcement Directorate registered the case under the PMLA in October 2019 and filed its chargesheet in October 2022, treating the drugs and the cheques as proceeds of crime. In its order, the court said, "these cheques being the outcome of the dealings between both the accused in that case are to be considered as proceeds of crime and the arguments of learned defence counsels are liable to be discarded."

It further said, "As such, this court reaches at the conclusion that both the accused have committed an offence defined under Section 3 of PMLA Act and punishable under Section 4 of the PMLA Act and accordingly, both the accused are convicted under Section 4 of PMLA Act."

The defence argued that the recovered contraband and cheques were not proceeds of crime "as there in no drug money involved in the scheduled offence (police case)" and that nowhere had it been stated that any amount was "exchanged or earned" by the accused in the transaction in the scheduled offence. The ED argued that the term property includes any kind of property used in the commission of an offence under the PMLA or any of the scheduled offences.

During the hearing on the sentence, the two accused urged the court to take a "lenient" view, saying they were the sole breadwinners of their families, suffered from various ailments, and were "innocent" because the police case had been recorded "falsely" against them.

Court records accessed by PTI show that a trial court had convicted the two in the police case in March 2015. Dara Singh, who was later re-employed by the Punjab Technical Education Board and worked there for nine years, challenged that conviction in the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

His sentence was suspended by the high court, and the appeal is still pending. The latest order deals with the money laundering case arising out of the same 2008 cocaine seizure.