The Supreme Court decided to hear in open court regarding a petition by Karti Chidambaram seeking review of its July 27 judgment upholding stringent provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and sweeping powers given to the Enforcement Directorate, a verdict that was widely criticised.
Deviating from the norm of rejecting the overwhelming majority of review petitions in chambers without hearing the counsel for parties, a bench of of former CJI N V Ramana and Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar, in its order said, “The application for oral hearing is allowed. List the matter in the court.” Decision came a day after the CJI-led three-judge bench, while dealing with the constitutionality of certain provisions of Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act, 2016, had said the PMLA judgment, without further clarifying, could be a tool for arbitrary application of confiscation provisions under the stringent law against money laundering. The CJI-led bench said, "In Vijay Madanlal Choudary vs Union of India (the July 27 judgment), this court dealt with confiscation proceedings under Section 8 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 and limited the application of Section 8 (4) of PMLA concerning interim possession by authority before conclusion of final trial to exceptional cases.”
A critical issue relating to the Justice A M Khanwilkar authored July 27 verdict, as flagged by legal experts, was the ruling that it is not mandatory to give an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) in every case to the person concerned. Much to the chagrin of legal experts who cited the principles of arrest laid down by the SC in a series of judgments, the SC had said, "It is enough if the Enforcement Directorate, at time of arrest, discloses grounds of such arrest.”
