Chandigarh, Nov. 1 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court has dismissed a plea from Congress leader and Bholath MLA, Sukhpal Singh Khaira, seeking to defer trial in a 2022 money laundering case. Khaira had moved the high court in April, demanding that since the trial in the drugs case remained stayed in view of the Punjab government undertaking before the Supreme Court, the money laundering case trial couldn't continue. The bench of justice Tribhuvan Dahiya, while dismissing the plea, said, "The offence of money laundering is independent of the scheduled offence; nevertheless, it gets its substratum from the proceeds of crime obtained as a result of the commission of a scheduled offence. Therefore, existence of scheduled offence is a sine qua non (an essential condition) so far as commission of offence under the PMLA is concerned, though the accused under the PMLA need not necessarily be a person accused of committing the scheduled offence as he can still indulge in a process and activity connected with proceeds of the crime derived from commission of a scheduled offence." A Fazilka court, in 2017, while convicting four persons in a 2015 drugs case, had summoned Khaira as an additional accused. Subsequently, the ED stepped in and raided Khaira's premises in March 2021 and later initiated proceedings under PMLA in January 2022. It is for the stay on these proceedings that Khaira had moved the high court in April 2025, challenging the continuation of the trial in the ED case when proceedings in the drugs case remained stayed in view of Punjab's undertaking. The Punjab government had given an undertaking before the Supreme Court in the drugs case in 2024 that it would not proceed with the trial. In February 2025, Khaira demanded that PMLA proceedings should not be continued in view of the apex court order. However, the special court in Mohali dismissed his plea regarding the same. The high court observed that the allegations against the petitioner, so far as commission of the scheduled offence is concerned, are that he had facilitated the sale of drugs by co-accused Gurdev Singh and received the drug money from him. "Under Section 3 of the PMLA, he is accused of using proceeds of crime generated by the commission of scheduled offence under the NDPS Act by co-accused Gurdev Singh, who already stands convicted for commission of the scheduled offences. In this background, argument by learned counsel for the ED has merit, that even if the petitioner is to be acquitted of charges pertaining to the scheduled offences, his prosecution under the PMLA will remain unaffected," the court said, adding that it is because the conviction of Gurdev Singh and generation of drug money/proceeds of crime by commission of the scheduled offences by him is not an issue before the trial court, where proceedings remain stayed. "In this view of the matter, the outcome of the trial before the special court in the PMLA case cannot be said to be connected to the trial of the scheduled offences, as the latter will have no bearing on the former," it added....