Saumya Chaurasia v. Directorate of Enforcement: the Section 45 woman proviso is discretionary, not automatic

The Supreme Court's judgment of 14 December 2023 in Saumya Chaurasia v. Directorate of Enforcement — reported as 2023 INSC 1073 — is the restrictive pole of the PMLA jurisprudence on the first proviso to Section 45(1). Where the proviso carves out an easier bail route for certain categories of accused, including a "woman", the question that recurs is whether that carve-out is an entitlement or a discretion. A Bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Bela M. Trivedi, in an opinion authored by Justice Trivedi, held firmly that it is a discretion. The word "may" governs; gender does not, without more, unlock the door.

The proviso and the interpretive question

Section 45(1) of the PMLA imposes the twin conditions on bail: a court may release an accused only where it is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing he is not guilty and that he is not likely to commit an offence while on bail. The first proviso softens that regime for a defined class. It provides that a person who is under sixteen years of age, or is a woman, or is sick or infirm, "may be" released on bail if the special court so directs.

The interpretive fault line runs through those two words. One reading treats the proviso as lifting the twin conditions for the listed categories, so that a woman becomes presumptively entitled to the ordinary bail enquiry. The competing reading treats "may be" as conferring a discretion — a power the court exercises case by case, not a status the applicant carries into court. Saumya Chaurasia adopts the second reading, and does so in categorical terms.

The facts

The appellant, Saumya Chaurasia, was the Deputy Secretary and Officer on Special Duty in the office of the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh. She was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on 2 December 2022 in connection with a money-laundering investigation arising out of an alleged coal-levy extortion racket, the predicate offences being registered under provisions of the Penal Code read with Sections 3 and 4 of the PMLA. After the High Court of Chhattisgarh dismissed her application for regular bail under Section 439 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, she moved the Supreme Court by special leave under Article 136 of the Constitution.

Before the Supreme Court, a central plank of her case was the first proviso: as a woman, she contended, she fell within the category entitled to the relaxed benefit and should be enlarged on bail. The Court took that submission head-on.

What the Court held on "may be"

Justice Trivedi held that the discretionary character of the proviso is written into its language. The benefit is available at the court's discretion, on the facts of each case, and cannot be claimed as of right.

The Court drew a parallel with Section 437 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which contains a similar benevolent provision for children under sixteen, women, and the sick or infirm, and observed that no such provision could sensibly be read as obligatory — for otherwise serious offences under special statutes would be committed through women and minors used as fronts. The judgment is careful, however, not to convert scepticism into exclusion. It records that courts must remain sensitive and sympathetic to the listed categories, who may be more vulnerable and are sometimes made scapegoats by unscrupulous elements. The point is one of method, not of blanket refusal: the benefit is real, but it is filtered through judicial discretion rather than conferred automatically.

That discretion, the Court held, must be structured. It is to be exercised judiciously, with the applicant's actual role and the strength of the prosecution material at the centre of the enquiry.

Applied to the record, that test produced a refusal. The Court found sufficient material to conclude, prima facie, that the appellant — as Deputy Secretary and OSD in the Chief Minister's office — was actively involved in the offence of money laundering under Section 3 of the PMLA, and that there was nothing to satisfy the Court's conscience that she was not guilty. The special benefit of the proviso was therefore withheld.

The caution to counsel

A second strand of the judgment has become a reference point in its own right. The Court found that the appellant's pleadings had misrepresented the record — in particular by not placing the true position on the chargesheet and cognizance before the Court in the manner in which the argument was pressed. Justice Trivedi used the occasion to restate the professional obligation of candour owed to the Court, and to hold it to an especially high standard for designated senior advocates.

The appeal was dismissed with costs of ₹1 lakh, tied expressly to the misrepresentation of facts. The costs order signals that the Court treated the inaccuracy not as a drafting slip but as a lapse of the duty of full and correct disclosure that every advocate, as an officer of the court, owes when invoking its jurisdiction.

The discretion pole, paired against K. Kavitha

Saumya Chaurasia is best understood as one end of a spectrum on the identical proviso. At the other end sits the Supreme Court's later bail order for K. Kavitha in the Delhi excise-policy matter, which read the first proviso far more generously in the applicant's favour and enlarged her on bail. The two decisions are not in formal conflict — Saumya Chaurasia fixes the interpretive premise that "may be" is discretionary, and the pro-applicant reading operates within that same discretion — but they mark out the range of outcomes the proviso can produce. Where the Kavitha line emphasises the benevolent purpose of the carve-out and the applicant's entitlement to have it seriously weighed, Saumya Chaurasia emphasises that the weighing is a genuine judicial enquiry into involvement and evidence that can, and here did, end in refusal. Read together, they show that the woman proviso is neither a trap nor a passport: it is a discretion whose exercise turns on the facts.

Where it sits in the PMLA bail line

The decision belongs to the body of post-Vijay Madanlal Choudhary authority working out how Section 45 operates in practice. Vijay Madanlal upheld the twin conditions and the surrounding architecture; Saumya Chaurasia clarifies that the proviso which relaxes those conditions for certain categories is itself discretionary. It stands in useful contrast to the cases in which the Court has granted PMLA bail — such as the Section 50 and liberty-driven reasoning in Prem Prakash, or the probabilities-based grant in Hemant Soren — by supplying the restrictive counterpart: an applicant who invokes a statutory softening but is refused because the evidence of active involvement is strong. For practitioners, the operative lesson is twofold. The woman proviso must be argued on the client's actual role and the weaknesses in the agency's material, not on category alone; and the pleadings that carry that argument must be scrupulously accurate, because the Court has shown it will impose costs where they are not.

Related on Valkya

• K. Kavitha v. Directorate of Enforcement: the Section 45 woman proviso cannot be read down
• Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India: the PMLA framework upheld
• Prem Prakash v. Directorate of Enforcement: how the Supreme Court reaffirmed 'bail is the rule' under the PMLA
• Hemant Soren v. Directorate of Enforcement: PMLA bail and the Section 45 twin conditions

Sources

1. Supreme Court of India — Saumya Chaurasia v. Directorate of Enforcement, 2023 INSC 1073, judgment dated 14 December 2023 (reportable): https://api.sci.gov.in/
2. SCC Times (SCC OnLine Blog) — "Money Laundering | Supreme Court refuses bail to Saumya Chaurasia, then Dy Secy of former Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel": https://www.scconline.com/blog/post/2023/12/14/money-laundering-supreme-court-refuses-bail-saumya-chaurasia-dy-secy-former-chhattisgarh-cm-bhupesh-baghel/
3. Verdictum — "Not Mandatory To Grant Bail Merely Because PMLA Accused Is A Woman: Supreme Court": https://www.verdictum.in/court-updates/supreme-court/saumya-chaurasia-v-directorate-of-enforcement-2023-insc-1073-pmla-section-45-1509650
4. Verdictum — "Very High Standard Of Professionalism & Legal Acumen Expected From Designated Senior Advocates: Supreme Court": https://www.verdictum.in/court-updates/supreme-court/saumya-chaurasia-v-directorate-of-enforcement-2023-insc-1073-designated-senior-advocates-1509706
5. LiveLaw — "Supreme Court Dismisses Bail Plea Of Saumya Chaurasia, Former Chhattisgarh CM's Dy Secretary, In Money Laundering Case": https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-chhattisgarh-coal-levy-scam-former-cm-bhupesh-baghel-saumya-chaurasia-244494