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2018 (8) TMI 365 - AT - FEMAAdjustment of penalty from the frozen amount and FDR - review petition - Held that:- At no point of time, did the Enforcement Directorate either seize them or confiscate them so that they could be forfeited to the Central Government. The adjudicating authority has released these amounts from being frozen, by not confiscating them. This money belongs to the appellant/his son, and while directions for freezing was only a temporary measure, the adjudicating authority should have passed appropriate order of either releasing them or confiscating them. But he has mentioned that he is not confiscating them, meaning thereby that he is releasing them. Once no confiscation order has been passed it is not clear under which provisions of law the said amount was appropriated towards the penalty amount. Without going into the maintainability of the review petition under Section 19 (6), any merit in the review petition wherein they have prayed that the review petition may be allowed by modifying the impugned order to the extent that the principal amount should be confiscated (interest accrued has been appropriated to the Central Government by the impugned order). No merits in the appeal that this is a blatantly illegal order in as much as appropriation has been ordered of the money which has been released/not confiscated by the adjudicating authority himself. Once the principal amount is released, the question of allowing the “interest accrued on the blocked amount and FDR be credited to the Central Government” (to use the language in the impugned order) does not arise.
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