Supreme Court Bench hearing PMLA challenge to hear over 400 petitions against these laws

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear from May 1 a batch of petitions challenging penal provisions under five laws in terms of their compatibility with protections entitled to accused under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Constitution..The batch of over 400 writ petitions challenges provisions of the Goods and Services Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Companies Act, the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, and the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA)..The matters are listed before a Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, MM Sundresh and Bela M Trivedi..The same Bench is also slated to hear the the case concerning the validity of provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)..The batch of petitions pertaining to the GST Act, in short, contends that the proceedings before the Directorate General of GST Intelligence become of criminal nature without adequate safeguards."The power to arrest and prosecute is not ancillary and/or incidental to the power to levy and collect GST. Further, Entry 93 of List I confers jurisdiction upon the Parliament to make criminal laws only with respect to matters in List I and not GST. Art. 20(3) protection is not available to a person summoned under Section 70 11. There is no protection available to the summoned person under Article 20(3) of the Constitution," one of the pleas state.In a similar vein, pleas challenging provisions of the Companies Act assail the powers and procedure of the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) in this regard. It is stated that the conditions for bail under the Act are unreasonable, drastic and contrary to the presumption of innocence..PMLA validity: After 2 days of hearing, Supreme Court dissolves bench as Centre seeks time, Justice SK Kaul to retire soon.The Black Money Act petitions deal with challenges to the penalties and prosecution prescribed under the Act. They assail two sections primarily.First, Section 54 of the Act that provides for the presumption of culpable mental state on the part of the accused contrary to the generally accepted principle of innocent until proven guilty. Second, Section 55 of the Act provides for prosecution by the Principal Commissioner without following the processes under the CrPC..The Customs Act petitions similarly challenge proceedings before the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence for being violative of the protections available to accused under the CrPC and the Constitution.The challenges to criminal prosecution under the FCRA are on similar grounds..Supreme Court dismisses plea seeking politically neutral body to oversee FCRA implementation.Advocates Ashish Batra and Vivek Gurnani are nodal counsel for the petitions challenging provisions of the Customs Act. Advocates Malak Bhatt and Kanu Agrawal for the Companies Act, Advocates Rajat Mittal and Annam Venkatesh for the (Central) Goods and Services Tax Act, and Advocates Karan Bharioke and Vivek Gurnani for the Black Money law.