New Delhi, Aug. 21 -- The Delhi High Court has strongly pulled up the Enforcement Directorate for attempting to keep a PMLA investigation alive after the criminal case on which it was originally based had been closed, holding that the agency cannot continue coercive proceedings on the basis of a "fictitious" concept of proceeds of crime when the underlying scheduled offence no longer survives.

Justice Anish Dayal, in a detailed 115-page judgment, quashed the ED proceedings arising from ECIR against members of the Aristo group and also struck down an August 2025 addendum through which the agency sought to bring an old 2019 FIR within the ECIR.

The Court held that once the competent court accepts a cancellation report concerning the sched...