Dawood Ibrahim properties: Legal hurdles that need to be removed

The Union Finance Ministry has joined in the efforts to reduce Dawood Ibrahim's financial strength. Latest is an affidavit in the Supreme Court seeking a directive to seize all Dawood Ibrahim's properties in Mumbai.

This actions comes in the wake of the Enforcement Directorate seeking to seize Rs 2,500 crore invested by the Dawood Ibrahim gang through Iqbal Mirchi in the United Kingdom.

Dawood may have not figured in the talks between the Prime Ministers of India and Paksitan at Ufa, but the government machinery has launched a drive to squeeze the Karachi based don of his finances.

Squeezing his finances would make him irrelevant, the Intelligence Bureau says as he thrives on this might.

Legal hurdles need to be cleared:

Dawood has several properties at Nagpada in Mumbai. The properties were under dispute ever since Dawood fled the country post 1993 after the Mumbai serial blasts.

The properties were however attached in the year 1998 under the Foreign Exchange Manipulators (forfeiture of property) Act. While the property was attached the same required a forfeiture since Dawood's mother and sister were in possession of it.

The mother and sister then moved the Delhi High Court which dismissed their plea. They had sought before the High Court a directive against the forfeiture of the property.

The matter was then challenged before the Supreme Court in 2012 which ordered a status quo on the matter. As a result of this status quo order the forfeiture of the property by the government was not possible.

The Finance Ministry in its affidavit has sought dismissal of the appeal filed. It says that the status quo order relating to the forfeiture of the property needs to be vacated and there is a need for action to be initiated by the government.

Spinning a web around Dawood:

While the affidavit in the Supreme Court is just a start to seize Dawood's financial assets, there are at least three other agencies in India working on the don's case.

While the Intelligence Bureau continues to provides intercepts which leads to major drug seizures, the Enforcement Directorate is trailing his money abroad and also within the country.

The local police at Gujarat and Maharashtra too is providing assistance to ensure that he is not able to smuggle contraband into the country.

Intelligence Bureau officials say that the smuggling routes of Dawood Ibrahim are more or less blocked. There was a time when smuggling drugs and arms through India from Pakistan had become a cake walk for him.