The Supreme Court has today postponed the review petitions concerning the Vijay Madanlal Choudhary judgment, which affirmed several provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The next hearing in the case is scheduled for November 27.

A bench comprising Justices Surya Kant, C.T. Ravikumar, and Ujjal Bhuyan issued the order at the request of the parties involved. The petitioners indicated that Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal was engaged in another part-heard matter, to which ED counsel Zoheb Hossain replied that the Enforcement Directorate did not oppose the request.

It is important to note that the matter was initially listed on August 7 and has been continuously adjourned since then.

The VMC judgment was delivered on July 27, 2022, by a bench consisting of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari, and C.T. Ravikumar. In this ruling, several provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) were upheld, including the following:

(i) Sections 5, 8(4), 15, 17 and 19 of PMLA, relating to Enforcement Directorate's power of arrest, attachment, search and seizure;

(ii) Section 24 of PMLA, relating to reverse burden of proof (in this regard, the Court said the provision had "reasonable nexus" with the objects of the Act);

(iii) Section 45 of PMLA, which provides "twin-conditions" for bail (in this regard, it was said that the Parliament was competent to amend the provision in 2018 even after the Supreme Court's judgment in Nikesh Tarachand Shah, which struck down the conditions).

Following this decision, eight review petitions were filed. After the retirement of Justice Khanwilkar, then Chief Justice N.V. Ramana led the bench to review the petitions.

While issuing notice on August 25, 2022, the bench led by Chief Justice Ramana orally noted that at least two conclusions of the judgment warranted further examination: first, that the copy of the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), which is analogous to an FIR in money laundering cases, need not be provided to the accused; and second, the upholding of the reversal of the presumption of innocence.

Subsequently, the Court permitted an application for an open court hearing of the review petitions. Since the issuance of notice, the petitions were listed for hearing for the first time on August 7. On that date, the matter was adjourned at the request of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who asked for additional time to prepare and present his arguments.