On 12 July 2024, a two-judge bench granted Arvind Kejriwal interim bail in the ED's Delhi excise-policy matter, held that an arrest under Section 19 PMLA must rest on cogent, fairly weighed material and is judicially reviewable, and referred framed questions on whether the 'need and necessity to arrest' is a distinct ground of challenge to a larger bench.
On 12 May 2023, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court set aside a Telangana High Court order granting bail in a Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 matter and remitted the bail applications for fresh consideration. The Court held that the investigation of the predicate (scheduled) offence and the Enforcement Directorate's investigation of the money-laundering offence are separate and distinct, and that the mere filing of a charge-sheet in the predicate offence is no ground to grant bail under the PMLA while the ED investigation is still ongoing — a rare Enforcement-Directorate-favourable, bail-cancellation ratio in the post-Vijay Madanlal line. A digest of the holding, the doctrinal frame, and where it sits against the pro-liberty cases.
On 27 August 2024 the Supreme Court granted bail to K. Kavitha in the Delhi excise-policy money-laundering case, holding that the first proviso to Section 45(1) PMLA — which relaxes the twin bail conditions for a woman — cannot be denied merely because the woman is highly educated, sophisticated, or a Member of Parliament or Legislative Assembly. The Court found the Delhi High Court had misread Saumya Chaurasia to confine the proviso to 'vulnerable women'. A digest of the pro-applicant pole of the s.45 proviso debate, the excise-policy context, and how it pairs against the restrictive discretionary reading.
On 23 November 2017, a two-judge bench of Justices R.F. Nariman and Sanjay Kishan Kaul struck down the twin conditions for bail in Section 45(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, as unconstitutional — violative of Articles 14 and 21. The Court held that tethering the bail fetter to the punishment threshold of the Part-A scheduled offence, rather than to the money-laundering offence itself, was a classification with no rational nexus to the object of the Act. This is the doctrinal origin of the whole twin-conditions saga; a 2018 amendment recast the provision, and Vijay Madanlal Choudhary (2022) later upheld the revived form. A digest of the holding, the ratio on Articles 14 and 21, and why the strike-down remains the reference point everything since is measured against.
On 5 September 2019, the Supreme Court refused pre-arrest bail to P. Chidambaram in the INX Media Enforcement Directorate matter, holding that anticipatory bail must be exercised sparingly in economic offences, which stand as a class apart — the gravity of the offence, the need for custodial interrogation, and the stage of the investigation weigh against the discretion under Section 438. A digest of the anticipatory-bail holding, its distinction from the regular-bail grant that followed on 4 December 2019, and how the 'class apart' line has since been nuanced by the speedy-trial bail jurisprudence.
On 3 October 2023, the Supreme Court held that the Directorate of Enforcement must furnish the written grounds of arrest to a person arrested under Section 19 of the PMLA as a matter of course and without exception. Merely reading the grounds out, or letting the arrestee read and sign them, does not satisfy Article 22(1) or Section 19(1) — and an arrest made without written grounds, together with the remand that follows, is vitiated. The judgment also censured the ED's clandestine second ECIR, recorded to defeat the anticipatory-bail protection the appellants had just secured, and set aside the contrary High Court view in Moin Akhtar Qureshi. This is the PMLA origin of the written-grounds rule that Prabir Purkayastha later carried across to the UAPA and arrests generally.
The Supreme Court held that a person need not be an accused in the scheduled offence to be prosecuted under Section 3 of the PMLA, but that criminal conspiracy under Section 120-B of the IPC becomes a scheduled offence only where the conspiracy is to commit an offence that is itself in the PMLA Schedule.
On 15 December 2023, a coordinate bench of the Supreme Court read Section 19 of the PMLA to require that the written grounds of arrest be furnished within 24 hours of arrest rather than at the instant of arrest, and held that Pankaj Bansal operates prospectively — so arrests made before 3 October 2023 are not vitiated for want of contemporaneous written grounds. The essential qualifier that narrows the Pankaj Bansal safeguard.
On 14 December 2023 the Supreme Court refused PMLA bail to Saumya Chaurasia, holding that the words 'may be' in the first proviso to Section 45(1) make the relaxed-bail benefit for a woman discretionary — to be extended only after weighing the extent of her involvement and the nature of the evidence — and cautioning counsel against inaccurate representations in special leave petitions.
On 16 May 2024 the Supreme Court held that once the Special Court takes cognizance of a PMLA complaint under Section 44(1)(b), the ED is powerless to arrest under Section 19; an accused who appears on summons is not in custody, so the Section 45 twin conditions are not attracted, and the court may instead take a bond under Section 88 CrPC.
On 13 February 2025 the Supreme Court set aside a Patna High Court order granting PMLA bail by a cryptic order, holding that the Section 45 twin conditions are mandatory, that a bail court must record its satisfaction on them in a reasoned order, and that Section 50 statements are not barred by Article 20(3) at the bail stage. A digest of the holding and where it sits in the PMLA bail line.
On 7 August 2023, the Supreme Court held that 'custody' under Section 167(2) CrPC covers agencies beyond the police — including the ED — that the 15-day custody ceiling runs across the whole 60/90-day investigation, and that a writ of habeas corpus cannot short-circuit a magistrate's remand once Section 19 PMLA is complied with. A digest of the cash-for-jobs custody ruling, the hospitalisation episode, and the reference on Anupam Kulkarni.
Valkya Editorial··8 min
High CourtHigh Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh
The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh quashed the ED's charge sheets in the cricket-association probe, holding that without a predicate scheduled offence there can be no proceeds of crime — and that conspiracy alone is not a scheduled offence.
The Patna High Court held that where the ED files its prosecution complaint without arresting the accused during investigation, the power to arrest under Section 19 PMLA does not survive cognizance — applying Tarsem Lal.
The Jharkhand High Court granted regular bail in a money-laundering case, finding the Section 45 PMLA twin conditions satisfied — there was reason to believe the petitioner was not guilty and unlikely to reoffend on bail.
On 9 August 2024, a two-judge bench granted bail to Manish Sisodia in both the ED and CBI Excise Policy cases, holding that 17 months' incarceration with no trial in sight violated the Article 21 right to a speedy trial.
On 19 May 2026, a two-judge bench held that the first proviso to Section 223(1) BNSS — requiring the accused to be heard before cognizance is taken on a complaint — is a mandatory, substantive Article 21 right; cognizance without compliance is void ab initio, and the rule applies to PMLA complaints where cognizance is taken on or after 1 July 2024 even if the complaint was filed earlier.
On 23 July 2019 a two-judge bench of Arun Mishra and U.U. Lalit, JJ. delivered the 270-page Amrapali judgment in exercise of plenary writ jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution. Acting on the findings of a court-ordered Forensic Audit Report, the Court cancelled the Amrapali Group's RERA registration, cancelled the Noida and Greater Noida lease deeds, appointed NBCC (India) Ltd at an 8% commission to complete the stalled projects, appointed Senior Advocate R. Venkataramani as Court Receiver, directed the Enforcement Directorate to investigate offences under FEMA and PMLA, and ordered ICAI disciplinary action against the statutory auditor. Dues recoverable from the authorities and banks were ringfenced to attached promoter assets and were held not to be a charge on the homebuyers or the projects.
On 28 August 2024, the Supreme Court granted bail to Prem Prakash — an associate of the then-Chief Minister of Jharkhand — in a Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 matter, after he had spent over a year in custody. The judgment reaffirmed the constitutional principle that 'bail is the rule, jail is the exception' in PMLA cases, held statements made by an accused while in PMLA custody to be inadmissible against him under Section 50 PMLA, and continued the post-Vijay Madanlal arc in which the Court has moderated the operation of the twin bail conditions where prolonged incarceration meets the proportionality test of liberty. A digest of the holding, the doctrinal frame, and where the PMLA bail line stands now.
On 27 July 2022, a three-judge bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar upheld substantially all the contested provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 — the arrest power under Section 19, the provisional attachment power under Section 5, the search-and-seizure architecture under Section 17, the reverse-burden provision under Section 24, and the twin bail conditions under Section 45. The judgment also held that an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) is not equivalent to an FIR and need not be supplied to the accused. A digest of the holdings, the doctrinal contributions, and the review now pending.