2025 (2) TMI 904

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....ENT Abhay S.Oka, J. Leave granted. 2. Heard the learned senior counsel appearing for the appellant and the learned Solicitor General appearing for the respondent. 3. The appellant has been arrested for the offence under Section 3 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (for short "the PMLA") 4. In this case, the appellant has undergone incarceration for a period of 1 year and 2 months. There are 225 witnesses cited, out of which only 1 has been examined. Therefore, the trial is not likely to be concluded within few years. Hence, a decision of this Court in the case of V.Senthil Balaji v. Deputy Director, Directorate of Enforcement 2024 SCC OnLine SC 2626  will apply. Paragraphs 27 and 29 of the said decision read thus: ....

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....tanding the statutory provisions. The Constitutional Courts can always exercise its jurisdiction under Article 32 or Article 226, as the case may be. The Constitutional Courts have to bear in mind while dealing with the cases under the PMLA that, except in a few exceptional cases, the maximum sentence can be of seven years. The Constitutional Courts cannot allow provisions like Section 45(1)(ii) to become instruments in the hands of the ED to continue incarceration for a long time when there is no possibility of a trial of the scheduled offence and the PMLA offence concluding within a reasonable time. If the Constitutional Courts do not exercise their jurisdiction in such cases, the rights of the undertrials under Article 21 of the Constitu....