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Representation of individuals, promoters, directors and enterprises in proceedings under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the Foreign Exchange Management Act, the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, the Black Money Act, the Prevention of Corruption Act and SFIO investigations under the Companies Act, 2013.
White-collar enforcement in India has expanded significantly over the past decade. Investigations once confined to administrative penalty have evolved into criminal prosecutions with attachment, arrest, search and seizure powers exercised at the threshold stage. The interaction of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 with predicate offences under the Indian Penal Code, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and a growing list of scheduled offences has fundamentally reshaped the defence landscape.
CK Law Offices represents accused persons, promoters, directors, professionals and enterprises in the full sweep of white-collar proceedings. The work spans the earliest stage — search and summons — through to attachment, adjudication, prosecution, appeal and constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court of India.
The defence is decided in the first forty-eight hours. Reply too soon and the case is conceded; reply too late and the attachment is final.
The white-collar practice covers six principal statutory frameworks. Each framework has its own procedural architecture, evidentiary rules, limitation periods and forum hierarchy. Defence strategy must be calibrated to all of them, frequently in parallel.
Attachment, adjudication, prosecution. Section 17 search, Section 19 arrest, Section 50 summons, Section 5 attachment, Section 8 confirmation, Section 26 appeal.
Civil contraventions, compounding, Special Director (Appeals) and Appellate Tribunal proceedings. Section 13 penalties, Section 37A attachment.
Provisional attachment by the Initiating Officer, confirmation by the Adjudicating Authority, appeal to the Appellate Tribunal, and prosecution before Special Courts.
Notice under Section 10, assessment, penalty under Section 41, prosecution under Section 49 et seq before Designated Courts.
Bribery offences (Section 7, 7A, 8, 9, 13), Section 17A prior approval, attachment under the Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance, 1944, and prosecution before Special Judges.
Section 212 investigations, Section 211 inspection, prosecution before Special Courts, parallel proceedings with the Registrar of Companies and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 is the most procedurally complex of the white-collar statutes. Three parallel tracks operate at once: attachment (administrative), adjudication (quasi-judicial) and prosecution (criminal). Each track has independent timelines, independent evidence rules, and independent appeal hierarchies. The firm's PMLA defence is structured around all three.
Provisional attachment under Section 5 must be confirmed by the Adjudicating Authority within 180 days. The reply to the Original Complaint, the cross-examination of the Investigating Officer, and the documentary defence on the question of "proceeds of crime" are decided at this stage. A confirmed attachment is appealable to the PMLA Appellate Tribunal under Section 26 within 45 days.
The defence response to a Section 17 search, Section 50 summons or Section 19 arrest is forensic. Document production, statement strategy, witness preparation and parallel writ remedies are deployed in carefully sequenced steps. The firm has appeared in matters involving multi-state ED searches, multi-jurisdiction summons and constitutional challenges to arrest under Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India (2022) and the post-judgment line of authority.
The Special PMLA Courts in Delhi and Bengaluru are the firm's principal trial forums. The work spans charge-framing, discharge applications, bail strategy, cross-examination of ED witnesses, parallel CBI co-ordination where the predicate offence is registered separately, and final-arguments strategy. Bail under Section 45 PMLA — including the post-Vijay Madanlal Choudhary contours — is a particular focus.
Appeals before the PMLA Appellate Tribunal are document-heavy and law-heavy. The firm's procedural primer on Section 26 appeals is published in the Insights section.
The Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 governs civil contraventions of foreign-exchange law. Unlike PMLA, FEMA proceedings are non-criminal — but penalties under Section 13 can run to three times the sum involved in the contravention, and Section 37A allows attachment of equivalent value of foreign assets.
The firm advises and represents clients on:
The interaction between FEMA, the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 and the Press Note 3 (2020) regime for foreign investment from "land-bordering countries" is a focused area of the practice.
The Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988 — substantially overhauled in 2016 — establishes a four-stage proceeding: provisional attachment by the Initiating Officer, reference to the Adjudicating Authority, confirmation, and appeal to the Appellate Tribunal. Prosecution under Section 53 carries imprisonment for up to seven years.
The firm represents accused beneficial owners, benamidars, and innocent third-party purchasers in:
The Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 imposes a 30% tax and a 90% penalty on undisclosed foreign assets, with a separate criminal prosecution track under Section 49. The Act applies to "ordinarily resident" persons and prosecutes both individuals and entities.
The firm's Black Money Act practice covers:
The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, as substantially amended in 2018, criminalises both supply-side and demand-side corruption. Sections 7, 7A, 8 and 9 cover bribery; Section 13 covers abuse of position by public servants. Section 17A introduced a prior-approval requirement for investigation against public servants — a procedural safeguard the firm relies on actively.
The work spans:
The Serious Fraud Investigation Office investigates company-law fraud under Sections 212, 213 and 217 of the Companies Act, 2013. SFIO investigations frequently run in parallel with ED, CBI and Income Tax proceedings, and the SFIO's report can be the basis for prosecution under Section 447 of the Companies Act.
The firm represents directors, key managerial personnel and corporate entities through every stage:
White-collar defence is fact-intensive, document-heavy and timeline-sensitive. The firm's approach turns on three principles:
Document discipline. Every defence is built from the documents on record. The first task on every engagement is a complete documentary inventory — search panchnamas, summons replies, statements, communications, banking records, audit trails. A defence cannot be argued on assumption.
Parallel-track management. ED, CBI, Income Tax, SFIO and Registrar proceedings frequently arise from the same factual core. A statement to one authority can become evidence in another. The firm co-ordinates the defence across all forums to ensure consistency.
Bench awareness. The Special PMLA Courts, the Special CBI Courts, the PMLA Appellate Tribunal, the High Courts and the Supreme Court each have distinct procedural cultures. Arguments that succeed in one forum can be inadequate in another. The firm tailors the defence to the bench.
The white-collar matter is decided as much by the order of moves as by the moves themselves.
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If you are facing an ED summons, a CBI inquiry, an SFIO investigation or any of the proceedings above, please write briefly to the firm with the nature of the matter and the forum involved.
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