PANAJI
The question of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) being used for politics which has dominated political discourse over the last couple of years with several Opposition leaders jailed, reverberated in a panel discussion at a legal conference in which top judges, including the Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud partook.
The matter was raised by Goa's former Advocate General Atmaram Nadkarni, who criticised the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for keeping money laundering accused in prison for long without trial.
Delay in trial has been a prime ground cited in multiple recent judgements of the Supreme Court of India, to release on bail several top politicians under the otherwise stringent PMLA.
Former chief ministers of Delhi and Jharkand -- Arvind Kejriwal and Hemant Soren -- were among several politicians who got bail with the Apex court applying this ground of delayed or prolonged trial which violates Article 21 of the Constitution -- right to life and personal liberty.
Nadkarni in his remarks at the 'International Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Legal Conference' held in Goa at the weekend, said, the ED should not take ages to investigate cases as the accused wait for trial inside the jail.
"ED investigation cannot take ages. After probing you need to release the person," Nadkarni said at the panel discussion on 'Facets of PMLA' according to noted legal news website "Bar and Bench"
Nadkarni, who himself has been an Additional Solicitor General (ASG) and represented central agencies in the Apex court said, the ED's powers are very subjective and therefore, it functions according to 'his master's voice'.
"Powers of ED are subjective and it depends. His master's voice which actually works and that is how ED works. I am openly saying it. Because you need somebody to say it openly and it is most unfortunate that people are not saying it and I have said it even when I was Additional Solicitor General," the Bar and Bench report quoted him as saying.
At the conference, Nadkarni recalled that the PMLA was enacted during the tenure of the Vajpayee-led NDA government in 2002 and came into force during the UPA rule in 2005, when P Chidambaram was the Union finance minister.
Incidentally, Chidambaram also became a victim of PMLA after he was arrested in a money laundering case in 2018, Nadkarni is said to have pointed out at the conference according to Bar and Bench.
Justice Subramonium Prasad of the Delhi High Court also chipped in at the discussion saying the PMLA is critiqued for having an adverse effect on article 21 of citizens.
"....but then when the purpose of the law was to prevent or deter people from committing such crimes ... So that money is not laundered... this act is operating in the present avatar," Justice Subramonium added.
