New Delhi: Senior Advocate Menaka Guruswamy, for one of the petitioners challenging the various provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that of the 1700 raids conducted and 1569 specific investigations by the Enforcement Directorate(ED) — with rates increasing by 20% every year and then doubling and tripling- since 2011, only nine convictions have been secured.
A bench comprising Justice AM Khanwilkar, Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice CT Ravikumar is hearing a batch of petitions seeking safeguards for arrest, search and attachment process by the ED under PMLA.
"What the agency has been able to secure in hundreds and hundreds of cases has been attachment of property, arrest, months of scheduled and unscheduled interrogation, seizing of properties, signing of documents, self-incrimination, resulting in a violation of well-established principles that we agreed to in 1950 when the Constitution came in", she urged.
"In the case that I represent, the person was not only arrested, not only had her property including her only home seized by the authorities, attached, not only was subjected to multiple months of interrogation, but she got a copy of the ECIR two years after her only home is attached! She happens to be a national awardee, recognised for good work by the President of this country. And how does she get a copy of this? Because she chooses to challenge the attachment before the Appellate Tribunal. The Appellate Tribunal rules in her favour and then the ED is obligated to attach a copy of the ECIR. Can we imagine a world where for multiple years I am interrogated, I am threatened, I am arrested, I have my home attached and it is only when I choose to challenge before the appellate tribunal that I finally get a copy of the actual complaint? That is the world we don't have to imagine, that is today's world of PMLA!", she pressed.