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 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 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 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.