Supreme Court Lists Review Petitions Against Judgment Upholding PMLA Provisions On Sept 18

Pursuant to a mentioning, the Supreme Court today tentatively listed the review petitions pending against the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary judgement, which upheld various provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), on September 18.

The matter was mentioned before a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan by Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal.

It may be recalled that a three-judge bench of Justices Kant, CT Ravikumar and Bhuyan is hearing the review petitions. Today, Justice Ravikumar was not sitting and as such, the matter had to be re-listed.

To recap, the VMC judgment was delivered on July 27, 2022 by a bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar. Vide this judgment, certain provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) were upheld. These included -

(i) Sections 5, 8(4), 15, 17 and 19 of PMLA, relating to Enforcement Directorate's power of arrest, attachment, search and seizure;

(ii) Section 24 of PMLA, relating to reverse burden of proof (in this regard, the Court said the provision had "reasonable nexus" with the objects of the Act);

(iii) Section 45 of PMLA, which provides "twin-conditions" for bail (in this regard, it was said that the Parliament was competent to amend the provision in 2018 even after the Supreme Court's judgment in Nikesh Tarachand Shah, which struck down the conditions).

Subsequent to this decision, the instant review petitions (8 in number) were filed. With the retirement of Justice Khanwilkar, then CJI NV Ramana presided over the bench to consider the petitions.

While issuing notice on August 25, 2022, CJI Ramana-led bench orally observed that at least two conclusions of the judgment required relook - first, that the copy of the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR; equivalent of FIR in money laundering cases) need not be given to the accused, and second, the upholding of the reversal of presumption of innocence.

Thereafter, the Court allowed an application for open court hearing of the review petitions. Since issuance of notice, the petitions were listed for hearing for the first time on August 7. On this date, the matter had to be adjourned at request of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who sought some time to prepare and argue.

Case Title : Karti P Chidambaram v. The Directorate of Enforcement | RP(Crl) 219/2022 (and connected cases)