NEW DELHI, October 18 — A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India delivered a landmark constitutional pronouncement on Sunday ruling that the stringent 'twin conditions' for bail under Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) 2002 cannot be invoked to subvert personal liberty where predicate offences remain unestablished.
The apex court held that where no prima facie criminal proceeds can be directly linked to the accused through credible documentary evidence, constitutional protections guaranteed under Article 21 (Right to Life and Personal Liberty) prevail over mechanical detention under special penal enactments. The bench reiterated the foundational criminal jurisprudence doctrine that 'bail is the rule and jail is the exception', affirming that pre-trial detention cannot serve as a punitive substitute for trial.
The judgment mandates that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) must record unambiguous and objective 'reasons to believe' under Section 19 prior to exercising coercive arrest powers, noting that prolonged incarceration without timely commencement of trial constitutes a grave violation of speedy justice safeguards.
Statutory mechanics of the PMLA 2002 (definitions of Proceeds of Crime under Section 2(1)(u), predicate offences under the Schedule, and Section 45 conditions), Financial Action Task Force (FATF) mutual evaluations, the transition from CrPC Section 438 to the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS 2023), and the landmark Vijay Madanlal Choudhary verdict (2022) are central to UPSC GS-II (Polity & Governance).