Accused wants case moved to Kerala. Supreme Court says: not how it works.

He asked the Supreme Court to move his money laundering trial from Lucknow to Kerala. The judge said—no, that’s not how this works. KA Rauf Sherif, the General Secretary of Campus Front of India, wanted his case transferred from a courtroom in Uttar Pradesh to one in his home state. The Supreme Court’s answer came down to a single, sharp question: why would an accused ask to fix a problem that actually helps him?

The courtroom fell silent as the bench posed that question. Before them lay a thin stack of case files, the topmost bearing the Lucknow court’s seal. On one side, the petitioner’s handwritten remand order from Kerala sat clipped to the bundle—a document Sherif hoped would anchor his argument. It would not.

When the trial began in Lucknow

In December 2020, Sherif was arrested. By February 2021, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had filed a prosecution complaint under the Prevention of Money-laundering Act (PMLA) against him and four others before the Special Judge, PMLA, in Lucknow. Charges were framed in December 2022. The trial had started—the first prosecution witness was already being examined. The file on the bench grew thicker with each procedural step: the framing of charges, the witness list, the transfer petition itself.

Then Sherif changed course. He filed a petition in the Supreme Court asking for the entire case to be shifted from Lucknow to Ernakulam in Kerala. His argument: the Lucknow court had no territorial jurisdiction (no legal authority over this case because the alleged crime happened elsewhere). Most of the accused and witnesses were from Kerala. His initial remand had been ordered by a magistrate in Kerala. So why was he being tried in Uttar Pradesh?

The two FIRs that led here

The story behind this case stretches back a decade. In April 2013, an FIR (a written complaint that starts a police investigation) was registered at Mayyil Police Station in Kannur district, Kerala, against 22 persons for offences under the Indian Penal Code, the Arms Act, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). The National Investigation Agency took over, filed a chargesheet, and by January 2016, a special court in Ernakulam convicted 21 of the accused. The Kerala High Court confirmed the convictions for IPC offences but acquitted them under one section of UAPA. The Supreme Court dismissed a special leave petition against that order.

Then, in 2018, the ED registered an ECIR (the money laundering equivalent of an FIR) based on that 2013 case. Separately, another FIR was registered in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh in 2020 for offences under the IPC, UAPA, and the Information Technology Act. The ED’s prosecution complaint combined both threads: it alleged that funds from PFI accounts had been transferred to individuals arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad with explosives and arms. That, the ED said, established a territorial link to Uttar Pradesh.

The procedural journey was long and layered. The predicate offence FIR from Kerala had travelled through the NIA, a trial court, the High Court, and finally the Supreme Court—all before the money laundering case even began. The ECIR was registered in 2018, but the prosecution complaint in Lucknow came only in 2021. By then, the Mathura FIR had added a second predicate offence, creating a web of jurisdictions that Sherif now sought to untangle through a transfer petition.

Why the Supreme Court said no

The bench—Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice Pankaj Mithal—heard Sherif’s petition under Section 406 of the CrPC (the Supreme Court’s power to transfer cases from one court to another) read with Section 65 of the PMLA (which applies the CrPC’s procedures to money laundering cases). The courtroom’s silence deepened as the judges examined the petition, the remand order, and the stack of accompanying documents.

The court identified the central problem with Sherif’s argument. He was asking for a transfer on the ground that the Lucknow court lacked territorial jurisdiction. But the court said: a lack of jurisdiction, if it actually exists, is a defect that benefits the accused. If the Lucknow court had no authority to try him, any conviction it passed could be challenged on that very ground. Why would an accused ask the Supreme Court to cure a problem that works in his favour?

“A congenital defect of lack of jurisdiction, assuming that it exists, inures to the benefit of the accused and hence it need not be cured at the instance of the accused to his detriment,” the court held. The words hung in the air as the bench glanced at the remand order—a document from Kerala that, far from helping Sherif, only underscored the court’s reasoning.

Where the money laundering happened

The court also clarified how territorial jurisdiction works under the PMLA. It relied on its own recent judgment in Rana Ayyub v. Directorate of Enforcement to hold that a Special Court’s jurisdiction is determined by where the activities that constitute money laundering took place—not by where the original crime (the predicate offence) was registered or tried.

Under Section 3 of the PMLA, money laundering includes concealment, possession, acquisition, use, or projecting tainted property as untainted. If any of these activities occurred in Uttar Pradesh—for example, the transfer of funds to persons arrested there with explosives—then the Lucknow court had jurisdiction. The fact that the original 2013 FIR was in Kerala didn’t matter. The court’s reasoning drew directly from Rana Ayyub, which had established that the territorial nexus must be traced to the money laundering processes themselves, not to the predicate offence.

This distinction is critical. The predicate offence—the original crime that generates the tainted money—may occur in one state, but the laundering of that money—the concealment, possession, or use of the proceeds—may happen elsewhere. Under the PMLA, it is the latter that determines jurisdiction. The Special Court in Lucknow could take cognizance because the prosecution alleged that funds had been transferred to individuals in Uttar Pradesh, establishing a clear territorial link to the state.

What the other arguments missed

Sherif also argued that most accused and witnesses were from Kerala, making it inconvenient to travel to Lucknow. The court dismissed this as insufficient. The residence of parties, by itself, is not a ground to transfer a case from one state to another under Section 406 CrPC. The bench noted that inconvenience to witnesses, while a practical concern, cannot override the jurisdictional framework established by the PMLA.

He pointed out that his initial remand was ordered by a magistrate in Kerala under Section 167(2) CrPC (the provision that allows a magistrate to authorise detention when investigation isn’t complete within 24 hours). The court said this didn’t help him either. Section 167(2) itself allows a magistrate to order remand “whether he has or has not jurisdiction to try the case.” A remand in one jurisdiction doesn’t prevent the prosecution from filing a complaint in another jurisdiction where the money laundering actually occurred.

The handwritten remand order from Kerala, which Sherif had placed before the court, became a symbol of his failed argument. The document showed that a magistrate had authorised his detention in Kerala—but that fact, the court held, had no bearing on where the trial should proceed. The remand order was a procedural step in the investigation, not a jurisdictional anchor for the trial.

Why this matters for every PMLA accused

The judgment settles a practical question that arises in almost every multi-state money laundering case: which court gets to try it? The answer is clear—the court where the money laundering activities happened, not where the original crime was committed or where the accused lives.

For defence lawyers, the takeaway is equally clear. A challenge to territorial jurisdiction is a weapon for the accused, not a favour to ask the court to fix. If the trial court lacks jurisdiction, the accused can raise it after conviction. Asking the Supreme Court to transfer the case to a court that does have jurisdiction only strengthens the prosecution’s position. The court’s analogy—comparing lack of jurisdiction to a congenital defect that benefits the accused—underscores this point: why would anyone seek to cure a condition that protects them?

The judgment also clarifies the interplay between the CrPC and the PMLA. Section 65 PMLA makes the CrPC’s procedures applicable to money laundering cases, but the PMLA’s own provisions on jurisdiction—Sections 43 and 44—take precedence. The court’s reliance on Rana Ayyub confirms that the territorial jurisdiction of a PMLA Special Court is sui generis, determined by the location of money laundering activities rather than by the general criminal jurisdiction principles in the CrPC.

THE PLAY: Never file a transfer petition under Section 406 CrPC arguing lack of jurisdiction—you are asking the Supreme Court to cure a defect that benefits your client.

The transfer petition was dismissed. The trial in Lucknow continues. The stack of files on the bench will return to the Special Judge, PMLA, Lucknow, where the first prosecution witness awaits further examination. The handwritten remand order from Kerala, once a centrepiece of Sherif’s argument, will remain in the record—a reminder of a strategy that the Supreme Court declined to endorse.