PMLA Judgment Reconsideration : Live Updates From Supreme Court [Day 2]

SG Mehta requests time to address the court so that he is able to provide full assistance, cites the complexity of the issues involved.

Khanna J: Mr Sibal, are you pressing your amendment petition?

Sibal: No, My Lord.

Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi concludes his argument.

SG Mehta: May I start on some other day?

Singhvi: Your Lordships should never allow Section 120B...

Khanna J: It's punishable on its own unlike Section 34...

Singhvi: But it has to be linked. It's not a question of whether there's a punishment. The legislature, in its wisdom decided to exclude Income Tax act. Now they cannot introduce it through the backdoor by employing Section 120B. 

Singhvi: Look at the words. Right of due process, the presumption of innocence, protection by courts...FATF did not prescribe Section 45, it did not change 'and' to 'or'.

SG Mehta: I'm not relying on FATF for Section 45.

Singhvi: I'm relying on FATF for the opposite purpose. I'm not trivialising it, but saying you ought to follow FATF guidelines.

Singhvi takes court through FATF guidelines, stresses on its insistence to formulate anti-money laundering laws in accordance with fundamental principles of domestic law.

Singhvi: Nothing asks you to do these draconian things...they are citing international conventions...

SG Mehta (interjects): It is not my case. This was never my justification. It has to be as per the Constitution. 

Singhvi: You are catching me against my liberty in this way, it's completely wrong. I'm today arguing on Section 45.

Khanna J: What Mr Mehta said is perfectly applicable as far as Arms Act is concerned. You may only be tried for the arms recovered, under the Arms Act, but you can use the arms to extract money etc etc.

Singhvi: But, I'm on the anamoly of a bar. With great respect, there's no satisfactory answer. 

Khanna J: ...where generation of money is held to not be covered by the PMLA...but generation of money will always lead to possession, it cannot be without possession.

SG Mehta: I was trying to say that the impact in some other sense...

Khanna J: Whether it is a second offence, whether it will be hit by double jeopardy will have to be examined. I pointed that out in another case. In Vijay Madanlal, there is a contradiction emerging in certain sections.