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Ram Kishor Arora vs. Directorate of Enforcement

Criminal Appeal · 2023 INSC 1082Decided 15 Dec 2023
Criminal Appeal No. 3865 of 2023
Bela M. Trivedi · Satish Chandra Sharma

Background

The appellant, founder of a real-estate group facing multiple FIRs, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on 27.06.2023 in a money-laundering probe. The ED had shown him the written grounds of arrest, obtained his signature and a handwritten endorsement confirming he had read them, but did not hand him a copy at that time. He argued this made his arrest illegal under the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India, which required a copy of the grounds of arrest to be furnished in writing "as a matter of course." The Delhi High Court had rejected his plea, and he appealed to the Supreme Court challenging both the arrest and the remand order.

Decision Breakdown

The Court held that the Pankaj Bansal requirement to furnish a copy of the written grounds of arrest applied only "henceforth" from the date of that judgment, and was therefore prospective, not retrospective, so it did not apply to this arrest, which predated it. Relying on the earlier three-judge bench ruling in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary, the Court held that Section 19 of PMLA only requires the arrestee to be informed of the grounds of arrest, and that a two-judge bench (as in Pankaj Bansal) cannot override a three-judge bench's binding precedent. The Court interpreted the phrase "as soon as may be" in Section 19 to mean informing the arrestee within a reasonably convenient time, which it fixed at twenty-four hours of arrest. Since the appellant was shown the grounds, signed an endorsement acknowledging he had read and understood them, and did not dispute this, the Court found full compliance with Section 19 of PMLA and Article 22(1) of the Constitution, and dismissed the appeal.

Lesson Learnt

A Supreme Court ruling that uses the word "henceforth" applies only going forward, not to past arrests, and being orally informed of and shown (and acknowledging in writing) the grounds of arrest can satisfy the law even without immediately receiving a physical copy: the exact procedural safeguards available can depend on when the arrest took place relative to changing case law.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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