ED must supply grounds of arrest to PMLA accused in writing: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) must supply in writing the grounds of arrest to persons accused under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) [Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India & Ors]. .A bench of Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar said that the accused has a constitutional and statutory right to be informed of the grounds of arrest.It also held that mere reading of the grounds of arrest would not be an adequate compliance with the mandate under Article 22(1) of the Constitution and Section 19(1) of the PMLA.“To give true meaning and purpose to the constitutional and the statutory mandate of Section 19(1) of the Act of 2002 of informing the arrested person of the grounds of arrest, we hold that it would be necessary, henceforth, that a copy of such written grounds of arrest is furnished to the arrested person as a matter of course and without exception,” the judgment stated..Pertinently, the Court specifically said that the grounds of arrest should be provided to accused in writing, in what could be a slight addition to the three-judge Bench judgment in Vijay Madanlal Choudary & Ors v. Union of India.In Vijay Madanlal, the Court had held that an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) was not required to be supplied to the accused, and that it was enough if the ED, at the time of arrest, contemporaneously discloses the grounds of such arrest to such person."No doubt, in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary (supra), this Court held that non-supply of the ECIR in a given case cannot be found fault with, as the ECIR may contain details of the material in the ED’s possession and revealing the same may have a deleterious impact on the final outcome of the investigation or inquiry. Having held so, this Court affirmed that so long as the person is ‘informed’ of the grounds of his/her arrest, that would be sufficient compliance with the mandate of Article 22(1) of the Constitution," the Court said in the present judgment.However, such disclosure has to be in writing, the Court underscored..The Court made these observations while ordering the release of Pankaj Bansal and his father Basant Bansal, the directors of M3M Group, in a money laundering case related to bribery allegations against a former judicial officer in Haryana.In its judgment, the Court said that the ED was not expected to be vindictive in its conduct and must act with the "highest degree of dispassion and fairness.".The Court said that it would be essential for the arrested person to be aware of the grounds of arrest, as he or she is later required to meet the stringent conditions of bail under Section 45 of the PMLA. “It is only if the arrested person has knowledge of these facts that he/she would be in a position to plead and prove before the Special Court that there are grounds to believe that he/she is not guilty of such offence, so as to avail the relief of bail."Sensitive case information found in the grounds of arrest, if any, can always be redacted and the accused can be furnished with the edited copy, the Bench added..The Court noted that in certain parts of the country, authorized persons inform the accused of the grounds of arrest by furnishing the same in writing while in some places, the authorized officer only reads out or permits reading of the contents of the grounds of arrest. “This dual and disparate procedure to convey the grounds of arrest to the arrested person cannot be countenanced on the strength of the very same arrest order, in the aforestated prescribed format,” it said..The top court went on to say that in the event such grounds of arrest are orally read out to the arrested person and this fact is disputed in a given case, it may boil down to the word of the arrested person against the word of the authorized officer as to whether or not there is due and proper compliance.“Non-compliance in this regard would entail release of the arrested person straightaway, as held in V Senthil Balaji,” it said.Further, disclosing the grounds of arrest would not only apprise the arrested person of why he/she is being arrested, but also enable such person to seek legal counsel and present a case for bail.“The very purpose of this constitutional and statutory protection would be rendered nugatory by permitting the authorities concerned to merely read out or permit reading of the grounds of arrest, irrespective of their length and detail, and claim due compliance with the constitutional requirement under Article 22(1) and the statutory mandate under Section 19(1) of the Act of 2002,” it said..[Read Judgment]