Madras High Court: trial court cannot confiscate proceeds of corruption under CrPC without first attaching them

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court set aside a trial court's order confiscating properties linked to a Sub-Registrar and his wife convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 for amassing wealth disproportionate to known income. The appeals were brought not by the convicts but by third parties who had bought portions of the land, after it passed through intermediate purchasers, before the chargesheet was filed. Justice B. Pugalendhi held that once an offence is a scheduled offence under the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 1944, and Section 18A, inserted into the Prevention of Corruption Act in 2018, expressly applies that Ordinance's procedure to attachment and confiscation of proceeds of corruption, a trial court can no longer confiscate such property under Section 452 of the Code of Criminal Procedure without first having it attached under the Ordinance.

The Supreme Court's older ruling in Mirza Iqbal Hussain v. State of Uttar Pradesh, upholding a Section 452 confiscation, was distinguished because it predated these statutory changes. Since the investigating agency admittedly never sought attachment here, out of 144 pending corruption cases, the Ordinance had been invoked in only ten, the confiscation order could not stand, though the agency remains free to seek attachment before the appellate court now hearing the main conviction appeal. The Court also urged Parliament to make attachment of suspected proceeds of corruption mandatory, noting the properties had changed hands repeatedly during years of delay in investigation.