Supreme Court Agrees to List Plea Seeking Review of PMLA Judgment

The Supreme Court agreed to list a plea which seeks a review of its order upholding the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) powers associated with to arrest, attachment of property involved in concealment, search and seizure under the Prevention of cash Laundering Act (PMLA).

A bench headed by justice N V Ramana said, ‘okay, we are going to list it," when the plea was mentioned before it. it's common experience the planet over that cash laundering will be a “threat" to the nice functioning of a national economy, the SC had observed in July when upholding the validity of certain provisions of the PMLA, emphasising that it's not an “ordinary offence".

The Centre has insisted that cash laundering as an offence could be a threat to national security because it is committed not only by businessmen but also by terror organisations.

A bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar had said that authorities under the 2002 Act are “not law enforcement officials as such" and also the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) can't be equated with an FIR under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), adding that provide of an ECIR copy in every case to the person concerned isn't mandatory. it's enough if the ED, at the time of arrest, discloses the grounds of such an arrest. The petitioners within the case had raised the problem that the contents of ECIR weren't disclosed to those accused.

The court’s judgement came after over 200 petitions were filed by individuals and other entities questioning various provisions of the PMLA, a law which the opposition has often claimed has been weaponised by the govt to harass its political adversaries.