A special bench of the Supreme Court (SC) will hear on Wednesday the petitions seeking review of the 2022 judgment in the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary case. In this judgment, the Supreme Court had upheld several controversial provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) related to arrest, search, seizure, bail and other related procedures. A bench of Justice Surya Kant, Justice CT Ravikumar and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan will hear the case. The main review petition has been filed by Congress MP Karti Chidambaram. This will be the first time the review petitions are being heard after the notice was issued on August 25, 2022.
It is noteworthy that a separate bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice MM Sundresh and Justice Bela M Trivedi is also hearing petitions challenging the validity of sections 50 and 63 of the PMLA. These sections relate to the powers of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to summon witnesses, record statements from them and prosecute for giving false information. In these proceedings, there has been a persistent demand for reconsideration of the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary verdict.
The 2022 PMLA judgment had reaffirmed the sweeping powers granted to the ED under the 2002 Act. The 2002 Act empowered the ED to summon individuals, make arrests, conduct raids and seize property of suspects. The court justified these powers, saying that law enforcement agencies must have effective tools to protect the nation’s assets from criminals.
The 2022 verdict came after the court dismissed over 200 petitions filed by various individuals facing PMLA proceedings, including Chidambaram, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and former Ranbaxy vice-chairman Shivinder Mohan Singh. The petitions had argued that the law grants unchecked and arbitrary powers to the ED, which violates constitutional rights such as liberty, property and protection against self-incrimination. However, the Supreme Court said that it is “imperative for the state to enact such a stringent law.” The court categorised PMLA offenders as different from ordinary criminals.
The judgment also stated that the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) need not be provided to the accused, as it is only an internal document of the ED. The court said that it is sufficient to inform a person about the grounds of his arrest. Further, the judgment upheld those provisions of the PMLA that apply the principle of reverse burden of proof, which is contrary to the common law principle of “innocent until proven guilty”. That is, the accused will be presumed guilty until he proves himself innocent. Further, under the PMLA, courts are required to presume the involvement of the accused in money laundering until proven otherwise, even in bail proceedings.
On August 25, 2022, the Supreme Court had issued notice to the Central government in response to Chidambaram’s review petition against the July 27, 2022 judgment. At that time, the Court had indicated that only two issues relating to supply of ECIR and reverse onus of offence would be reconsidered, while the rest of the judgment would not be reviewed. Since then, the review petition has not reached effective hearing, while a separate three-judge bench is evaluating whether the 2022 judgment needs to be re-examined.
