Munmun Kaur
Published On: February 05, 2022 at 11:53 IST
Recently, the Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court held that the twin conditions for Bail under Section 45(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) that were declared Unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, stood revived in view of the Legislative intervention through the PMLA Amendment of 2018.
The Decision came after a Reference was made to the Division Bench of the High Court due to the conflicting views expressed by single Judges regarding the effect of the Amended Section 45 of PMLA.
Apparently, the Reference had arisen out of a Bail Application of Ajay Kumar who is an Accused in a Money Laundering Case.
The twin conditions for Bail under Section 45(1) of the PMLA which now stand revived, are that the Public Prosecutor must be given an opportunity to oppose Bail and after such opposition, the Court must be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the Accused is not Guilty of the Offence or is not likely to commit any Offence while on Bail.
Earlier, in the Judgment of Nikesh T.Shah v. Union of India, the Supreme Court had declared the twin conditions for Bail under Section 45(1) of the PMLA as Unconstitutional. Although, later through Legislative intervention, the twin conditions got revived.
A Bench of Justices VM Deshpande and Vinay Joshi, hearing the matter opined, “Unless the Amended provision is struck down by the Courts, it cannot be watered down. Since after the Amendment the entire complexion of Section 45 has been changed, we are not in agreement with the contention that the entire section has to be Re-Enacted by way of Amendment after Decision in the case of Nikesh Shah”.
The Court further said that the Section as it stood after the Amendment has to be read as it stands and has to be read as a whole.
The Amendment of 2018 was brought by way of an Ordinance, where the Offences were now referred to “Under the Act” instead of Offences referred to “Under Part A of the Act”.
Also read: Why was PMLA introduced?
