The Supreme Court has put a stamp of approval on the ‘restrictive’ conditions of bail and the almost comprehensive powers of arrest, search and seizure under the Act.
The Supreme Court has put a stamp of approval on the ‘restrictive’ conditions of bail and the almost comprehensive powers of arrest, search and seizure under the Act.
The 545-page judgment of the Supreme Court upheld the provisions of the anti-money laundering law granting bail, contrary to the prime minister, the chief justice of India and the union law minister’s eager urging to make justice easier for undertrials .
Around 4,700 cases are being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate, the agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Of the 6.10 lakh prisoners across the country, 80% are undertrials.
The judgment penned by Justice AM Khanwilkar on July 27 had upheld the PMLA’s controversial “twin conditions” for bail. That is, the trial court is required to grant bail only when the accused proves that he is not guilty of money laundering. And in the lesser chance of getting bail, the accused also has to prove that “he is not likely to commit any offense while on bail”.
For an undertrial person, who is in prison and with whom the ED has not shared the Enforcement Case Information Report, to prove that he is not guilty can be a difficult task, if not at least impossible. The same ‘twin’ conditions apply when the accused seeks anticipatory bail. In short, the accused has to prove that he is not guilty even to seek protection from arrest. The judgment also said that an undertrial prisoner who has already served half his sentence in prison cannot seek bail as an “absolute right”.
The court found the bail conditions under the PMLA appropriate to deal with the menace of money laundering, which it called “a serious form of crime worldwide”.
It rejected the submissions made by the petitioners that an accused can be taken into unconditional custody when the trial court framed charges under the PMLA. The petitioners had argued that the bail conditions in TADA and UAPA were not as strict as in PMLA.
But Justice Khanwilkar rejected these arguments and said that money laundering is as heinous as terrorism. PMLA was unique and necessarily strict law to fight money laundering attacking the sovereignty and integrity of India.
The Supreme Court’s nod to ‘restrictive’ conditions of bail and almost blanket powers of arrest, search and seizure under the PMLA comes even as the prime minister urged the judiciary to expedite the release at an event during the weekend. Undertrial prisoners in jails.
The PMLA decision also contradicts the spirit of the apex court’s earlier judgment delivered in July itself, which said that democracy “should not give the impression that it was a police state”.
There should be a rule of bail, not of jail. “There has been an influx of undertrials in prisons in India… More than two-thirds of the prisons are undertrials. Most of the prisoners in this category may not even be required to be arrested…” the court had said in its judgment on July 11.
Chief Justice of India NV Ramana on July 16 had condemned the hasty arrest and prolonged jail term. “In our criminal justice system, the procedure is punishment,” the top judge had said.
Supreme Court judge Justice DY Chandrachud had observed that “to deprive freedom even for a day, a day is too much”.