Supreme Court Forms Special Bench To Hear Review Petitions Against Judgment Upholding PMLA Provisions, Hearing Tomorrow

A special bench of the Supreme Court will hear tomorrow petitions seeking review of the 2022 judgment in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v.Union of India which upheld the various provisions of the Prevention Money Laundering Act (PMLA) relating to arrest, search, seizure, bail etc.

The bench comprising Justices Surya Kant, CT Ravikumar and Ujjal Bhuyan will hear the matters at 2 PM tomorrow. The lead review petition is filed by Congress MP Karti P Chidambaram.

It may be noted that another bench (Justices Sanjiv Khanna, MM Sundresh and Bela M Trivedi) is hearing petitions seeking the reconsideration of Vijay Madanalal Choudhary and its reference to a larger bench. The review petitions were not listed before that bench.

The review petitions are getting listed for hearing for the first time tomorrow after the issuance of notice on August 25, 2022. On August 24, 2022, the Court had allowed the application for open court hearing of the review petitions.

While issuing notice on the review petitions, a bench led by the then Chief Justice of India NV Ramana had orally observed that at least two conclusions of the judgment required relook - that the copy of the ECIR (Enforcement Case Information Report, the equivalent of FIR in money laundering cases) need not be  given to the accused and the upholding of the reversal of the presumption of innocence.

Case Title : Karti P Chidambaram versus The Directorate of Enforcement | RP(Crl) 219/2022