{"id":197826,"date":"2022-07-29T16:57:47","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T11:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=197826"},"modified":"2022-07-29T16:57:47","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T11:27:47","slug":"narrow-view-sc-verdict-on-pmla-fails-to-protect-personal-liberty-from-draconian-provisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/narrow-view-sc-verdict-on-pmla-fails-to-protect-personal-liberty-from-draconian-provisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Narrow view &#8211; SC verdict on PMLA fails to protect personal liberty from draconian provisions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>: This post is based on the following articles<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cNarrow view &#8211; SC verdict on PMLA fails to protect personal liberty from draconian provisions\u201d<\/strong> published in <b>The Hindu <\/b>on\u00a0<strong>29th July 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cBy upholding PMLA, SC puts its stamp on Kafka\u2019s law\u201d<\/strong> published in the <b>Indian Express <\/b>on\u00a0<strong>29th July 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus<\/strong>: GS 3 \u2013 money-laundering and its prevention.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>: About the issues surrounding PMLA<span style=\"background-color: var(--global--color-background); color: var(--global--color-primary); font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>News<\/strong>: The Supreme Court in <strong>Vijay Madanlal Choudhary and Ors versus Union of India case<\/strong> upheld the provisions of the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act).<\/p>\n<h5>What was the case about?<\/h5>\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%;\"><strong>Read here: <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/supreme-court-upholds-powers-of-arrest-raids-seizure-under-pmla\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Supreme Court upholds powers of arrest, raids, seizure under PMLA<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h5>What is the Prevention of Money Laundering Act?<\/h5>\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%;\"><strong>Read here: <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/prevention-of-money-laundering-act-2002\/\">Prevention of Money Laundering Act(PMLA)<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h5>What are the reasons behind stringent provisions of PMLA?<\/h5>\n<p>There is a widespread international concern over Money Laundering. Organised crime fuelling international narcotics trade and terrorism is funded by illicit money generated from crime, laundered to look legitimate and funnelled into the financial bloodstream of global and domestic economies.<\/p>\n<p>The PMLA was enacted in response to India\u2019s global commitment under the <strong>Vienna Convention<\/strong>. The primary purpose of the Act was to combat money laundering in India.<\/p>\n<p><em><b>Note:<\/b>\u00a0Vienna Convention was adopted in 1988.\u00a0It was the first international instrument to address the issue of proceeds of crime and to require States to establish money laundering as a criminal offence.<\/em><\/p>\n<h5>How do the PMLA is different from other International counterparts?<\/h5>\n<p>Money laundering in the Indian context is linked to or is seen as a byproduct of a host of both grave and routine offences that are appended to the PMLA as scheduled ones.<\/p>\n<p>These \u2018scheduled\u2019 or \u2018predicate\u2019 offences ought to be ideally limited to grave offences such as terrorism, narcotics smuggling, corruption and serious forms of evasion of taxes and duties.<\/p>\n<p>But, in practice, the list contains offences such as fraud, forgery, cheating, kidnapping and even copyright and trademark infringements.<\/p>\n<h5>What are the concerns associated with PMLA?<\/h5>\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%;\"><strong>Read here: <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/supreme-court-examines-allegations-of-rampant-misuse-of-pmla\/\">Supreme Court examines allegations of rampant misuse of PMLA<\/a><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>The other issues,<\/p>\n<p><strong>1)<\/strong> The list of crimes included in the PMLA <strong>overrides similar crimes in other parts of the law<\/strong>. It can override the safeguards of the Criminal Code of Procedure, <strong>2) <\/strong>The burden of proof is on the accused. Under Indian conditions, the <strong>process of proving innocence itself is the punishment<\/strong>, <strong>3)<\/strong> <strong>International treaties are often used to override domestic rights<\/strong> safeguards. By fulfilling India\u2019s global commitment under the Vienna Convention, India restricted civil liberties and the value of dissent, <strong>4)\u00a0<\/strong>The <strong>punishments<\/strong> under PMLA may potentially be excessively punitive, in <strong>disproportion to the crime<\/strong>, <strong>5) <\/strong> The <strong>conviction rate under PMLA is very low, less than 0.5%.<\/strong> But every year thousands of cases are registered, people are arrested, and lives are turned upside down, and <strong>6)<\/strong> The <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/enforcement-directorate-ed-2\/\"><strong>Enforcement Directorate<\/strong> <\/a>has been manifestly selective in opening money-laundering probes, rendering any citizen vulnerable to search, seizure, and arrest at the whim of the executive. Thus, the government of the day might use the ED against political opponents.<\/p>\n<table style=\"border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 99.8647%;\"><strong>Read more:\u00a0<\/strong><a title=\"How Enforcement Directorate (ED) became so powerful?\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/how-enforcement-directorate-ed-became-so-powerful\/\"><strong>How Enforcement Directorate (ED) became so powerful?<\/strong><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: This post is based on the following articles \u201cNarrow view &#8211; SC verdict on PMLA fails to protect personal liberty from draconian provisions\u201d published in The Hindu on\u00a029th July 2022. \u201cBy upholding PMLA, SC puts its stamp on Kafka\u2019s law\u201d published in the Indian Express on\u00a029th July 2022. Syllabus: GS 3 \u2013 money-laundering and&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/narrow-view-sc-verdict-on-pmla-fails-to-protect-personal-liberty-from-draconian-provisions\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Narrow view &#8211; SC verdict on PMLA fails to protect personal liberty from draconian provisions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10500,10498],"class_list":["post-197826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-indian-express","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704781755},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}