THE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SHRI MADAN B. LOKUR AND THE HON’BLE SHRI JUSTICE GHULAM MOHAMMED WRIT APPEAL NO.786 OF 2011 DATED:16.11.2011 Between: Vantimitta Suryanarayana Prabhakara Gupta and another … Appellants And The Government of India Rep. by its Secretary Ministry of Finance & Revenue New Delhi and others … Respondents THE HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE SHRI MADAN B. LOKUR AND THE HON’BLE SHRI JUSTICE GHULAM MOHAMMED WRIT APPEAL NO.786 OF 2011 JUDGMENT: (per the Hon’ble the Chief Justice Shri Madan B. Lokur) The appellants are aggrieved by order dt.25.8.2011 passed by the learned single Judge in W.P. No.27898 of 2010. 2. The appellants were issued notice by the adjudicating authority under Section 8 of the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002 (for short, ‘the Act’) asking them to indicate the sources of income, earning and assets as well as the means by which they acquired the property in respect of which the provisional attachment dated 21.10.2010 was issued. 3. Insofar as the show cause notice is concerned, according to the learned counsel for the appellants, the adjudicating authority under the Act had no jurisdiction to issue it because the alleged offence was committed before the inclusion of Section 420 of IPC in the schedule to the Act. It is also submitted by learned counsel for the appellants that the alleged offence under Section 467 of the IPC is not made out. 4. Even though the show cause notice was issued to the appellants as far back as in October, 2010, we find that no reply has been filed to the show cause notice nor have these issues been urged before the adjudicating authority by way of any correspondence or any application. 5. In our opinion, appropriate course of action for the appellants would be to approach the adjudicating authority by way of filing a reply to the show cause notice and raising the issue of jurisdiction before the adjudicating authority. 6. We grant four weeks time to the appellants to file reply to the show cause notice. Of course, they will be at liberty to raise such contentions in the show cause notice as may be permissible in law. 7. The writ appeal is accordingly dismissed. Miscellaneous application is also dismissed. __________________ MADAN B. LOKUR, CJ ____________________ GHULAM MOHAMMED, J 16-11-2011 bnr