The Supreme Court will on Wednesday deliver its judgment on a batch of petitions challenging the validity of a slew of stringent provisions added to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar will deliver its verdict on a spectrum of issues relating to the stringent provisions enunciated under the PMLA and the broad powers conferred on the Enforcement Directorate.
The bench, which will also include Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravi Kumar, will give its verdict on aspects such as failure to provide an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), the equivalent of an FIR in a regular criminal procedure, to the accused, the power to conduct raids and to carry out immediate arrests, harsh bail conditions, attachment of property quickly after registration of a case and lack of oversight mechanism.A series of petitions filed by several individuals facing ED proceedings under the PMLA, including Congress MP Karti Chidambaram, argued that the law violated the constitutional guarantee of the right to liberty and the right against self-incrimination under Articles 20 and 21, offense of money laundering.
In its defence, the Union government said the PMLA supports India’s commitment to fight money laundering in line with its international commitments.Referring to how the amendments yielded results in the cases investigated against fugitive economic offenders Vijay Mallya, MehulChoksi and Nirav Modi, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said, “In these three cases alone, the ED seized proceeds of crime worth more than `18,000 ₹ crore orders issued by the courts and the amount was returned to the banks.”In the last five years, according to the Centre, “only 2,086 cases have been taken up for investigation under the PMLA out of approximately 33 thousand (3.3 million) FIRs registered for predicate offenses by the police and other law enforcement agencies.
