The Supreme Court’s judgment on granting bail to Aam Aadmi Party leader Manish Sisodia has asked courts to shed their blinkers, look beyond the “gravity” of economic offences and pay attention to factors like delayed trial and prolonged jail time spent as undertrials while deciding bail pleas in money laundering cases.
A Bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and K.V. Viswanathan recognised speedy trial as a fundamental right under the umbrella of Article 21 of the Constitution. The court has also amplified the cause of fair trial under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). It has held that an accused cannot be denied access to documents which may absolve him. These records or statements cannot be simply categorised as “unrelied-upon documents” and concealed from the accused.
The judgment, on August 9, was the result of a series of recent decisions that have been chipping away at a rigid interpretation of Section 45 of the PMLA. The provision lays down conditions for grant of bail. The conditions are tough. In fact, they represented odds stacked up so high against the accused, who would be behind bars, that bail would be nearly impossible.
The provision allowed the public prosecutor an opportunity to oppose the bail application. In case the prosecutor objects to bail, the court could still grant bail, but only if it was satisfied that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the accused was not guilty and, again, not “likely” to commit any offence while on bail.
In October last year, a Supreme Court Bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna held that delay in trial coupled with incarceration for a long period should be read into Section 439and Section 45 of the PMLA. This Bench denied Mr. Sisodia interim bail, but laid the ground for the August 9, 2024 judgment.
In its Vijay Madan Lal Choudhary judgment, the court said the conditions for bail laid down in Section 45 must be construed reasonably. “The provision does not require that to grant bail, the court must arrive at a positive finding that an accused has not committed an offence under the PMLA… the intent of the legislature cannot be read as requiring the court to examine the issue threadbare and in detail to pronounce whether an accused is guilty or is entitled to acquittal,” Justice Gavai copiously quoted from this judgment.
Justice Gavai referred to how the Supreme Court had dismissed the objections raised by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) and granted former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram bail after 49 days of incarceration.
“Even if the allegation is one of grave economic offence, it is not a rule that bail should be denied in every case,” the apex court had reasoned.
