Supreme Court PMLA verdict review: Petitioners seek reference to larger Bench; hearing on August 6

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that review petitions against the July 2022 judgment of the Supreme Court in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India upholding the validity of the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) will be heard by it on August 6 and 7 [Karti P Chidambaram v Directorate of Enforcement]..A Bench of Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan and N Kotiswar Singh also said that it will examine whether the matter will have to be referred to a larger Bench if the review petitions are allowed."We have requested the review petitioners and the Solicitor General (SG) to formulate the proposed issues and circulate among them so that questions which require to be determined can be formulated. All the petitions are directed to be listed on August 6 and if need be the matter shall be further heard in August 7," the Court said in its order today.When the matter was taken up for hearing today, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioners, handed over the list of issues to be considered by the top court.However, the Bench noted that some of the issues framed by the petitioners would arise only if the review petitions are allowed."Some of the issues indicated Mr Sibal is on the premise that review is allowed, judgment is recalled and then those issues will arise," Justice Kant remarked.The review petition is heard by the same Bench which heard the original matter or a bench of the same strength if the judges on the original Bench retire.However, some of the issues put forward by the petitioners were such that it could be considered only by a Bench of more than three. "That is why we have urged to decide whether this needs to be referred to a larger bench," Sibal responded to Justice Kant."Justice Oka judgment is there on ECIR. ECIR has to be given to accused," he added. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta deprecated the practice of hearing review petitions like appeals."Review petition is here as such like an appeal. The issues (set out by the petitioners) runs into 4 pages reopening the entire Act and the entire judgment," he objected..The petitions before the Bench have questioned the correctness of the Court's decision in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India, in which the validity of the PMLA was upheld.The July 2022 verdict was rendered by a three-judge Bench on a batch of 241 petitions challenging the validity of the law..Before the Vijay Madanlal ruling was delivered, a Division Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Rohinton Nariman had struck down Section 45(1) of the PMLA to the extent it imposed two additional conditions for bail. This verdict was pronounced in November 2017 in the case of Nikesh Tarachand Shah v. Union of India.However, the Nikesh Tarachand decision was overruled in July 2022 by the three-judge Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar in the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary case.In that ruling, the Court upheld the validity of several provisions of the PMLA, including 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 Supreme Court also held that the supply of Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) to the accused under PMLA proceedings is not mandatory since ECIR is an internal document and cannot be equated to a First Information Report (FIR).The 2022 ruling invited vehement criticism from various quarters and led to several review applications being filed..[Read Live Coverage]