The Supreme Court on Wednesday quashed an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) against retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer MS Jaffar Sait, effectively bringing an end to the money laundering proceedings against him..A Bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Ujjal Bhuyan reviewed the report filed by the Registrar General of Madras High Court and observed that the Division Bench of the High Court had quashed the ECIR against Sait on August 21, 2024, but subsequently listed the matter for re-hearing on August 23 without formally notifying the parties. The Court had sought this report on September 6, 2024, when it stayed the proceedings initiated by the High Court..The appeal arose from a sequence of unusual events at the Madras High Court, where a Division Bench initially quashed the ECIR against Sait on August 21, 2024, but later recalled this order without formally issuing notice to the parties.The ECIR was registered against Sait by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on allegations that he had illegally acquired a Tamil Nadu Housing Board plot in 2011.A corruption case against Sait that was registered by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) had already been quashed by the High Court in 2019, eliminating the predicate offence required to sustain the PMLA case..On August 21, 2024, the Division Bench of Justices SM Subramaniam and V Sivagnanam quashed the ECIR, noting the ED’s concession that the predicate offence had been quashed. However, two days later, on August 23, the same Bench listed the matter for re-hearing without issuing notice to the parties, prompting objections from Sait’s counsel. Senior Advocate T Mohan strongly contested the recall, arguing that once a final order is passed in open court, it cannot be recalled without following the elementary principles of natural justice.The matter reached the Supreme Court, which, on September 6 last year, stayed the Madras High Court’s order and sought a report from the Registrar General of the High Court on the procedural handling of the case. The report submitted by the Registrar General confirmed that the Division Bench had indeed passed a final order allowing the writ petition on August 21, 2024. It further noted that the case status on the court portal reflected this outcome until oral directions were given by the judges on the evening of August 21 to relist the matter on August 23..After reviewing the report, the Supreme Court observed that the High Court Bench had failed to provide Sait an opportunity to be heard before recalling its own order. “If the Division Bench intended to recall the order passed on August 21, elementary principles of natural justice required the Bench to issue notice to the parties, especially the appellant, to show cause as to why the final order should not be recalled,” the Court noted in its order..Further complicating the case, the predicate offence against Sait and all other accused had been quashed by separate High Court orders, including one dated April 4, 2025, which quashed the complaint against the last remaining accused. Given that the underlying predicate offence no longer survived, the Supreme Court concluded that the ECIR against Sait could not stand.“Thus, the scenario which emerges today is that the predicate offence does not survive in the sense that it has been quashed against all the accused.".The Bench, however, clarified that if the order quashing the predicate offence is set aside in the future, the ED may apply for the restoration of the ECIR..Sait was represented by Senior Advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan. The ED was represented by Advocate Zoheb Hossain.
