SC brushes aside govt objection, sets ball rolling for PMLA verdict review

A judgment is an opinion that can always change in future because judges also have a duty to keep thinking and evolving, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday as it set the ball rolling on the reconsideration of its July 2022 verdict that had affirmed a spate of contentious provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

- Utkarsh Anand

A bench, headed by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, brushed aside the Centre’s protest against hearing the matter without first examining the latter’s objections to the manner in which the petitioners reportedly sought to rake up the legal points already settled by the 2022 verdict.

“It’s not fair not to allow the court to proceed. Let the petitioners open the case and we will then see what is to be done,” the bench, also comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna and Bela M Trivedi, told solicitor general (SG) Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Centre.

Mehta and additional solicitor general (ASG) SV Raju, who was representing the Enforcement Directorate (ED), maintained that the court must not allow the petitioners to argue beyond their challenge to sections 50 and 63 of PMLA, which pertain to ED’s power to summon witnesses, extract confessions, and press for punishment for giving false information. The law officers added that the three-judge bench cannot reconsider the court’s earlier verdict in the Vijay Madanlal Chaudhary case, which was also decided by a three-judge bench in 2022.

But the bench was of the view that these submissions cannot stall the proceedings before it at the threshold. “The limited ambit of this bench is to see whether there is a need to send it to a bench of five judges... whether we feel this is a matter that needs to be referred to the larger bench. This is not something new or being considered for the first time,” it told Mehta.