Supreme Court agrees to list plea for review of PMLA verdict

The Supreme Court has agreed to list a petition seeking review of the verdict which upheld provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act last month. The petition was verbally mentioned before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana who said the same would be listed.

A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar had in its July 27 ruling upheld the constitutional validity of the provisions of PMLA, calling it a "unique and special legislation" and underlining the powers of the Enforcement Directorate to hold inquiries, arrest people and attach property. Several political parties have termed the legislation as draconian.

The ruling came on 241 petitions challenging the validity and interpretation of certain provisions of PMLA. The 545-page judgement authored by Khanwilkar - who retired a day later - observed that various provisions of PMLA "do not suffer from the vice of arbitrariness." Several critics argued that the verdict gave unbridled powers to ED. The bench overruled a two-member SC bench of 2017.