In an order that may have wide-ranging implications, the Supreme Court has said the bail is the rule even in money laundering cases.
The SC said that the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), which is one of the laws under which the Enforcement Directorate (ED) pursues cases, does not remove the legal principle that bail is the norm and jail is an exception.
In recent years, many high-profile persons, such as Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Manish Sisodia and Arvind Kejriwal, have been denied bail for a long time in cases of money laundering being pursued by the ED.
PMLA’s Section 45 doesn’t rewrite bail’s principle: SC
A Supreme Court bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan said that Section 45 of the PMLA, which lays down the ’twin test’ for bail, does not rewrite the legal principle which says bail is the norm and jail exception, according to The Indian Express.
The order came in a case of money laundering against one Prem Prakash, an alleged aide to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, in a PMLA case.
Section 45 of the PMLA practically shifts the responsibility for proving once’s innocence on the accused instead of making it the prosecutor’s job to prove the accused’s guilt.
Previously, Supreme Court advocate Tushar Agarwal told The Economic Times, “In PMLA, Section 45 mandates Twin Conditions for bail, firstly the prosecutor should be given adequate opportunity to oppose the bail and secondly the accused has to prove prima facie by placing the evidence on record establishing that he is not guilty.”
In the current order, the SC said that none of this takes away the principle that liberty of a person is the rule and deprivation exception.
“Relying on the judgment in Manish Sisodia, we have said that even in PMLA, bail is a rule and jail the exception. All that S 45 specifies is the conditions to be met for bail. Liberty of the individual is always the rule and deprivation, by procedure established by law, the exception. Twin test does not take away this principle,” said the SC, as per Bar & Bench.
The SC further said that the confession of an accused under the PMLA to an investigating officer (IA) will not be ordinarily admissible as evidence, according to The Express.
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‘Bail is rule & jail exception’: Supreme Court sets record straight in money laundering cases
