Supreme Court stays Delhi HC ruling which said ED can attach property from cricket betting money as proceeds of crime

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed a Delhi High Court ruling that allowed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to seize assets linked to illegal online cricket betting by treating them as “proceeds of crime” under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) [Tushar Bansal & Ors. v. Adjudicating Authority & Anr.].A Bench of Justice MM Sundresh and Justice N Kotiswar Singh issued notice to the ED on a petition challenging the High Court’s ruling on provisional attachment of properties by ED in a case alleging large-scale hawala operations and an international betting operation.The same were allegedly run through the UK-based website Betfair.com from a Vadodara farmhouse. .According to ED, the accused acted as conduits who procured and distributed Super Master IDs - digital access credentials that enabled the creation of multiple betting accounts, without any KYC compliance. In November 2025, the High Court ruled that the money made from betting using criminal acts of forgery, cheating, and conspiracy is 'proceeds of crime' under Section 2(1)(u) of the PMLA. The matter then reached the Supreme Court..The petitioner today raised the issue of parameters of PMLA, which allows the ED to act only when money or property is derived from crimes listed in a statutory schedule. The petition before top court said that the PMLA allows the ED to step in only when money flows from offences listed in its schedule. Since online betting and gambling are not on that list, they cannot initiate a money-laundering cases, it was contended. According to the plea, the ED tried to get around this by tying the alleged betting proceeds to a separate forgery case involving SIM cards, even though the money was said to have come directly from betting itself. As per the petition,“The impugned judgment has unjustly relied upon a distinct and remote activity of forgery to substantiate the allegation of existence of proceeds of crime in the present case. It is fundamental to the scheme of PMLA that if an offence in not included in the Schedule of the PMLA by the legislature, ED cannot derive jurisdiction.".While the High Court held that the petition before it was not maintainable because alternative remedies existed under the PMLA framework, it still went on to examine the facts and uphold the ED’s actions, the petitioner pointed out.According to the petition,“This approach renders the impugned judgment ex facie without jurisdiction, as once the High Court declined to exercise writ jurisdiction, it became functus officio and could not have adjudicated issues reserved exclusively for the statutory authorities under Sections 5 and 8 of the PMLA.” .Thus, the High Court effectively decided issues that should have been left to specialised authorities under the law, it was contended.“The statutory remedies have been reduced to an empty formality, rendering the Petitioner remediless and violating Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution,” said the plea..The High Court verdict is an attempt to extend the money-laundering law to activities only loosely connected to alleged offences, it was submitted.“The Hon’ble High Court has diluted and rewritten the statutory requirement of ‘as a result of criminal activity relating to a scheduled offence’ by introducing a novel and extra-statutory ‘downstream activity’,” argued the petitioner..ED can attach property from illegal cricket betting money as proceeds of crime: Delhi High Court.The petitioners were represented by Senior Advocate S Nagamuthu and advocates Sushil Gupta, Mayank Jain, Madhur Jain and Arpit Goel..Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.