Supreme Court rejects fresh plea to reconsider its judgment upholding PMLA validity

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition reconsideration of the July 27 verdict of the Court upholding the validity of provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). .A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi dismissed the plea which challenged the Constitutional validity of Section 37 of the Act that stipulates the power of the Chairperson to transfer cases."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." said the CJI while stating that the plea was misconceived.The petitioner in his plea had also sought reference of the July 27 verdict to a larger bench."You want 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," the Court ordered..In July this year, a bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar had, in a batch of 241 petitions, upheld the validity of the provisions of PMLA.The verdict saw stringent bail conditions in money-laundering cases being upheld, in variance with earlier Supreme Court decisions..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 further held that the supply of Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) under PMLA proceedings is not mandatory since ECIR is an internal document and cannot be equated to a First Information Report (FIR)..However, the judgment is now the subject of a review petition, which was filed by Congress lawmaker Karti Chidambaram. 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 and the offence of money laundering is serious, certain aspects of the judgment would need a relook.