Cannot mechanically lodge ECIRs, Supreme Court told
New Delhi: There cannot be mechanical lodging of an enforcement case information report (ECIR) as the PMLA requires that there must be some indication of the act of money laundering and projecting the proceeds of crime as untainted, the Supreme Court was told on Wednesday.
The apex court is dealing with a batch of petitions concerning interpretation of certain provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
A bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar was told by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who was appearing for some petitioners, that unless some material or indication of the act of money laundering is found from the FIRs lodged either by the CBI or the police, there should not be a threat of arrest against an individual from the ECIR lodged by the ED for the offence under PMLA.
Is it a proper implementation of this Act that the PMLA authorities register an ECIR, which is a carbon copy of the FIR? They do no preliminary investigation, Rohatgi told the bench, also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar.
The senior advocate argued that the act of lodging an ECIR, on the same or the next day of the FIR lodged by the CBI or police, without anything more and getting the wheels of investigation moving under the PMLA with the threat of arrest, is not a proper implementation of the law. He said the PMLA requires that there must be some indication of the act of money laundering", that is the act of projecting the proceeds of crime as untainted.
Unless that is found from the CBI FIR or the police FIR, you cannot start an ECIR, commence an investigation and have a threat of arrest against me tomorrow, he said.
What I am trying to say is there cannot be mechanical lodging of ECIR, or a verbatim business, opening me to a threat of investigation and arrest independently under this Act without anything more, Rohatgi told the bench during the arguments, which would continue on Thursday.
Rohatgi said it is happening in many cases that the CBI is not arresting an accused while in the ECIR lodged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the person is arrested.
