The Supreme Court of India today has dismissed the petition for reconsideration of the July 27 verdict of upholding the validity of provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
A bench comprising the Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi have dismissed the plea that challenged the Constitutional validity of Section 37 of the Act which stipulates the power of the Chairperson to transfer cases.
The CJI while speaking on the plea said it is misconceived. He further added that as soon as you have a problem with a provision you assail the act. It is not as if you face a trial. It is only a prima facie case.
The petitioner had in his plea also sought reference of the July 27 verdict to a larger bench.
The Court ordered that if the petitioner wanted to refer Vijay Madanlal Choudhary (July 27 judgment on PMLA) to larger bench? There cannot be such prayers. Sorry. This plea is misconceived and thus dismissed.
In July, this year the bench of Justice AM Khanwilkar, Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice CT Ravikumar had upheld the validity of the provisions of PMLA in a batch of 241 petitions.
The verdict saw stringent bail conditions in money-laundering cases being upheld, in variance with some Supreme Court decisions taken earlier.
The Court had also upheld the validity of Sections 3 (definition of money laundering), 5 (attachment of property), 8(4) [taking possession of attached property), 17 (search and seizure), 18 (search of persons), 19 (powers of arrest), 24 (reverse burden of proof), 44 (offences triable by special court), 45 (offences being cognizable and non-bailable and twin conditions for grant of bail by court) and 50 (statements made to ED officials).
The judgment had stated that the supply of Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) under PMLA proceedings is not mandatory as ECIR is an internal document and cannot be equated to a First Information Report (FIR).
However, a review petition has been filed by Congress lawmaker Karti Chidambaram in this judgement.
In August, the top court sought the Central government’s response in the review petition and said that while the objective of PMLA is noble, certain aspects of the judgment would need a relook.