New Delhi: observing that the crime of money laundering raised a serious threat not only for the country’s financial systems but also for its integrity and sovereignty And it could not be considered as an ordinary crime, the Supreme Court said Thursday that the courts should refrain from adopting an informal or superficial approach while granting the bond, since it must occur only when the twin conditions under PMLA are met.
A Banco de Judges Bela M Trivedi and Prasanna B Varale said that the burden was in the accused to prove that it was not involved in generating crime earnings. The bank separates the order of Superior Patna Court Granting bail to a defendant and ordered him to surrender.
The order of the Apex court is significant, since it comes in the context of a series of orders from different courts that seek to extend the principle of “the bond is the norm, the prison an exception” to the cases of PMLA.
SC reserve the ‘casual and knight’ bail of HC
Section 45 (of PMLA) imposes two conditions for the granting of the bond to any person accused of a crime punished for a prison period of more than three years under part of the schedule. The two conditions are that (i) the prosecutor must have the opportunity to oppose the bail application; and (ii) the court must be satisfied that there are reasonable reasons to believe that the accused person is not guilty of such an offense and that it is not likely to commit any crime while being released on bail. In addition to establishing, these two conditions are mandatory and must be fulfilled before the accused person is released on bail, ”said the bank.
Leaving aside the bail order, the bank said that HC passed the order of a “very informal and knight” way, without considering the rigors of section 45 and that there was no finding that there were reasonable reasons to believe that the defendant He was not guilty of the alleged crime under the law and that he was not likely to commit any crime while being released on bail.
“The crime of money laundering is not an ordinary crime. It has been considered as an aggravated form of the world of crime and criminals involved connected to the crime product are treated as a separate class of ordinary criminals. Any casual or superficial approach to the courts when considering the request for bail of the offender and granting the bond by approveing cryptic orders without considering the severity of the crime and without considering the rigors of section 45 cannot be claimed, ”said the bank.
“It is a very serious crime that is committed by an individual with a deliberate desire and the reason to improve their profits, ignore the interest of the nation and society as a whole, and such an offense for any stretch of imagination can be considered as a crime of trivial nature.
The Bank said that section 24 establishes that in the event that a person is accused of the crime of money laundering, the authority or the court must, unless proven otherwise, supposes that these crime income is involved in washing of money. “Therefore, the burden of demonstrating that crime income is not involved in money laundering would meet the person accused of crime,” the bank said.
In this case, accused Kanhaiya PrasadWho is the son of the Radha Charan Sah politics, was arrested in September 2023 and HC granted the bond in May 2024. According to the emergency service, both the father and the son were involved in illegal sand mining in Bihar .
