Supreme Court judge, Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, on September 26 said in court that a three-judge Bench headed by him is scheduled to begin hearing review petitions against a July 2022 verdict, which gave virtually unbridled powers to the Enforcement Directorate to arrest and summon individuals and raid private property under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The two Associate Judges on the Bench would be Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M. Trivedi. The review hearings would start from October 18.
The review petitions have alleged that the apex court’s July 27, 2022 judgment has deprived an accused person her basic rights, which includes even a copy of the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR).
The core amendments to which the judgment gave its stamp of approval had virtually transferred the burden of proof of innocence onto the shoulders of the accused instead of the prosecution.
The 545-page judgment, authored by Justice (now retired) A.M. Khanwilkar had upheld the PMLA’s controversial “twin conditions” for bail.
These conditions provided that a PMLA-designated trial court needs to give bail only if the accused proves she is not guilty of money laundering. And on the slim chance she does get bail, the accused has to also prove that she is “not likely to commit any offence while on bail”.
Herculean task
For an undertrial, who is under incarceration and with whom the ED has not shared the Enforcement Case Information Report, to prove that she is not guilty, to say the least, may prove to be a herculean, if not impossible, task, the review petitions argued.
“The apex court had called the PMLA a law against the “scourge of money laundering” and not a hatchet wielded against rival politicians and dissenters
“This is a sui generis [unique] legislation… The Parliament enacted the Act as a result of international commitment to sternly deal with the menace of money laundering of proceeds of crime having transnational consequences and on the financial systems of the countries,” the judgment had said.
The judgment was based on an extensive challenge raised against the amendments introduced to the 2002 Act by way of a Finance Act in 2019. Over 240 petitions were filed against the amendments which the challengers claimed to violate personal liberty, procedures of law and the constitutional mandate. Some of the petitioners included former ministers Mehbooba Mufti, Anil Deshmukh and Karti Chidambaram, who all claimed that the “process itself was the punishment”.
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