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Section 8 of the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 is the statutory bridge between an executive restraint and judicial confiscation. A provisional attachment under Section 5, or seizure or freezing under Sections 17 and 18, does not become conclusive be…
A lawful search under the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 does not give the Enforcement Directorate an indefinite right to keep every asset, document or device t…
Section 17 of the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 authorises entry, search, seizure, examination on oath and, where seizure is not practicable, freezing of recor…
Provisional attachment under Section 5 of the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 is an urgent preservation measure, not a declaration of guilt or final confiscation…
Section 50 of the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 requires a summoned person to attend, state the truth and produce demanded records. Article 20(3) of the Consti…
Section 50 of the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 gives designated authorities powers resembling those of a civil court for discovery, attendance, examination on…
Section 45 of the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 contains both a stringent general rule and a deliberately protective proviso. The general rule imposes the fami…
The Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 deliberately imposes a demanding bail standard. Yet Section 45 cannot authorise imprisonment without a realistically timely t…
Bail under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002 requires a court to apply two legal frameworks together. Section 45 imposes special restrictions in addition to or…
When the Enforcement Directorate completes investigation without arresting a person and the Special Court later takes cognizance of a prosecution complaint, appearance in…
Section 19 of the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002 does not confer an unrestricted power to arrest whenever the Enforcement Directorate suspects money laundering.…
C&C Law Chambers | Legal analysis | 3 September 2026 The starting point: “not mandatory” does not mean “prohibited” Can the Enforcement Directorate refuse to supply an En…
When the Predicate Offence Ends: Supreme Court and Delhi High Court Decisions Quashing ECIRs and Consequential PMLA Proceedings The Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 20…
Are PMLA Search, Seizure and Freezing Measures Open to Criminal-Writ Review? Karnataka High Court’s Gameskraft Ruling The Karnataka High Court has held that a challenge t…
Can an ECIR Be Challenged in a Writ Petition? Karnataka High Court’s Gameskraft Maintainability Ruling The Karnataka High Court has rejected the proposition that an Enfor…
Who Can Be Summoned under Section 50 PMLA? Karnataka High Court Clarifies the Reach and Limits of ED’s Power The Karnataka High Court has held that the Enforcement Direct…
Does Protection in a Predicate FIR Extend to PMLA Proceedings? Delhi High Court’s Ram Singh Decision Interim protection from arrest in a predicate-offence FIR does not, b…
Written Grounds of Arrest under PMLA: The Law after Pankaj Bansal, Ram Kishor Arora and Mihir Rajesh Shah An arrest under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002 is …
PMLA Arrest, Search, Remand and Defence Rights: The Punjab and Haryana High Court's Procedural Safeguards The Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 gives the Directora…
The Supreme Court granted bail to a person prosecuted under the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 after finding that only one of 225 cited witnesses had been exami…
The Supreme Court has clarified that an order confirming attachment, retention or freezing under Section 8(3) of the Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 does not cea…
The replacement of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 created an immediate interpretive question for special statutes that still referred to…
Which Special Court Should Try Connected PC Act and PMLA Cases? Madras High Court Applies the Dual-Designation Solution When a corruption prosecution and a connected mone…
When Quashing a Second FIR Does Not End PMLA Proceedings: Madhya Pradesh High Court Explains the Surviving Predicate-Offence Test A quashed FIR does not invariably exting…
Can ED Combine Multiple Predicate FIRs Through ECIR Addenda? The Unresolved PMLA Questions Before the Karnataka High Court The dispute before the Karnataka High Court in …
Mortgaged Properties and PMLA Attachment: Karnataka High Court Protects a Victim Bank’s Security The Karnataka High Court’s decision in Deputy Director, Directorate of En…
Fake GST Invoices, Section 19 Arrest and the Section 45 Bail Barrier: The Jharkhand High Court’s Mohit Deora Ruling The Jharkhand High Court’s decision in Mohit Deora v U…
The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has resolved an important procedural question under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002: when the Appellate Tribunal…
The Telangana High Court’s common order in Om Prakash Sharma v. Directorate of Enforcement and Manoj Baser v. Directorate of Enforcement examines an important boundary un…
When a reporting entity detects unusual activity, it must investigate enough to decide whether reporting or restriction is required, while avoiding evidence destruction, …
Real estate can convert, store and transfer large amounts of value, making it vulnerable to layering through cash, nominees, undervaluation and complex entities. PMLA the…
The Central Government notification of 3 May 2023 brought specified financial activities carried out on behalf of clients by practising chartered accountants, company sec…
India brought specified virtual digital asset activities within the PMLA reporting framework through the Central Government notification of 7 March 2023. The focus is fun…
When a corporate debtor enters insolvency while its assets are attached under PMLA, two statutory objectives collide: preserving proceeds of crime and rescuing a viable b…
Confiscation under PMLA is not intended only to transfer property to the State. Section 8(8) creates a route for restoring confiscated property, or part of it, to legitim…
Money-laundering frequently crosses borders through overseas companies, accounts, trusts, trade transactions and digital assets. PMLA addresses this through an expanded d…
Section 2(1)(u) defines proceeds of crime to include not only property directly or indirectly derived from scheduled criminal activity, but also “the value of any such pr…
PMLA is not a general law against every unexplained asset, accounting irregularity or tax default. Its central statutory expression—“proceeds of crime”—requires property …
Property may be attached while legally owned or possessed by someone who is not accused of the scheduled offence or money-laundering. PMLA does not make non-accused statu…
Section 70 addresses offences by companies and other juridical entities. It prevents the corporate form from insulating responsible decision-makers, but it does not impos…
Money-laundering structures rarely use a single transfer. Funds may move through layered accounts, related companies, purchases, loans and returns. Section 23 addresses t…
Section 24 reverses the ordinary evidentiary burden in defined circumstances, but it does not erase the prosecution’s foundational obligations. The presumption concerns p…
Reporting entities are the institutional gatekeepers of India’s anti-money-laundering framework. They are not investigators or courts, but Parliament has assigned them a …
J.K. Tyre and Industries Ltd. v. Directorate of Enforcement, W.P.(C) 5713/2020 and connected matters, decided by the Delhi High Court on 27 October 2021, is a significant…
When the Enforcement Directorate attaches property already mortgaged to a bank or financial institution, two public-law regimes intersect. PMLA seeks to preserve proceeds…
The date on which property was acquired is important, but it is not a complete legal answer to attachment under the Prevention of Money-Laundering Act, 2002. PMLA came in…
The offence of money-laundering is independent in its ingredients and trial, but it is not legally self-generating. Its jurisdictional foundation is property derived or o…
The Supreme Court’s decision in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India, 2022 INSC 757, is the principal modern authority on the structure of the Prevention of Money-L…
Tarsem Lal v. Directorate of Enforcement, 2024 INSC 434, clarified the procedure after the Enforcement Directorate files a prosecution complaint without arresting the acc…
Prem Prakash v. Union of India, decided on 28 August 2024, reinforced that the restrictive bail conditions in Section 45 of the PMLA do not override the constitutional pr…
In Manish Sisodia v. Directorate of Enforcement, decided on 9 August 2024, the Supreme Court granted bail in the connected corruption and money-laundering proceedings. Th…
V. Senthil Balaji v. Deputy Director, Directorate of Enforcement, decided in September 2024, applied Article 21 to a PMLA prosecution involving a substantial evidentiary …
Pavana Dibbur v. Directorate of Enforcement, 2023 INSC 1029, resolved an important question about Section 120B IPC and the PMLA Schedule. The Supreme Court held that cons…
Yash Tuteja v. Union of India, 2024 INSC 301, demonstrates the dependence of a money-laundering complaint on legally sustainable scheduled offences. The Supreme Court qua…
The Supreme Court’s 2024 decision concerning anticipatory bail in PMLA cases confirmed that the special conditions in Section 45 cannot be avoided merely because the appl…
Section 50 PMLA gives specified Enforcement Directorate officers powers to summon persons, require records and record evidence. A person summoned is legally bound to atte…
Section 19 PMLA permits specified ED officers to arrest only when, on material in possession, they have reason to believe that a person is guilty of an offence under the …
Section 5 PMLA enables provisional attachment of property to prevent alleged proceeds of crime from being concealed, transferred or dealt with in a manner that frustrates…
After a provisional attachment or qualifying seizure, Section 8 PMLA places the property question before the Adjudicating Authority. This stage supplies an independent st…
Section 24 PMLA alters the ordinary evidentiary position by creating a statutory presumption concerning proceeds of crime. Its operation must be understood with the prose…
Section 70 PMLA addresses offences by companies and other associations. It can extend liability beyond the entity, but it does not justify naming every director or office…
A PMLA prosecution is separate from the scheduled-offence trial, yet it depends on proceeds of crime derived from criminal activity relating to a scheduled offence. The l…