Emphasising that Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (‘PMLA’) and Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 serves distinct purposes, the National Company Law Tribunal (‘NCLT’) held that it does not carry the jurisdiction to direct the Enforcement Directorate (‘ED’) to de-freeze an account that was frozen under PMLA. The case pertained to the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process of a Company involved in a money laundering case. The ED froze the bank account of the Company during the investigation. Subsequently the RP approached NCLT to direct the ED to de-freeze the accounts of the Company as it was being used to pay the resolution process costs.
