A Delhi High Court bench comprising Justice Anil Kshetrapal and Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar has held that property linked to an online cricket-betting syndicate constitutes “proceeds of crime” and can therefore be seized by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The Bench, which had reserved judgment on September 23 and delivered it on November 24, 2025, dismissed a batch of six petitions challenging provisional attachment orders (PAOs) and show-cause notices issued in connection with an international betting and hawala network.
The petitioners argued that the ED could not attach their assets because they were not named in the predicate FIR and because the Directorate had issued the attachment orders and notices without recording any “reason to believe” as required under Sections 5(1) and 8(1) of the PMLA. They further contended that no “proceeds of crime” existed in law since cricket betting is not a scheduled offence.
The case stems from ED action initiated after intelligence inputs led to searches in May 2015 at a Vadodara farmhouse and related premises, where officers recovered documents, digital records, and cash tied to betting operations run through Betfair.com.
The ED subsequently registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) and traced significant transactions, including approximately Rs 60 crore settled between the accused entity “Maruti Ahmedabad” and one of the petitioners. The Directorate estimated aggregate proceeds of crime to be around Rs 2,400 crore.
However, the Court noted that the ED had relied on predicate offences, including forgery, cheating, identity fraud, and criminal conspiracy, linked to the procurement and distribution of “Super Master” login IDs that enabled the illegal betting scheme.
Court’s Refusal To Use Writ Jurisdiction
The Delhi High Court first examined whether it should intervene under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, even though, as it noted, “a substantial part of the cause of action has arisen in Delhi.” The Bench held that it would be “wholly inappropriate, both in law and in principle, to intercede in the present proceedings,” stressing that the petitions did not meet any of the Supreme Court’s three recognised exceptions for bypassing statutory remedies.
Relying on its recent ruling in ED v. Prakash Industries, the Court reiterated that writ courts may intervene only where there is a “violation of Fundamental Rights,” a “violation of the principles of natural justice,” or where “the order or proceedings are wholly without jurisdiction.” It found that “neither of the three contingencies stands attracted in the present case.”
The Court emphasised that the PMLA is a self-contained framework offering a “robust and multi-tiered mechanism,” including adjudication, an appeal to the Appellate Tribunal, and a further appeal to the High Court under…
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