Expeditious disposal of trial warranted in cases filed under bail-restrictive Prevention of Money Laundering Act, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act: Supreme Court

Supreme Court emphasizes need for speedy trials in PMLA and UAPA cases, warns against prolonged incarceration of undertrial prisoners.

The Supreme Court on Thursday turned the tables on Central agencies by holding that laws which restrict bail like the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) warrant expeditious completion of trial.

The apex court observed that graver the offence and more restrictive the chances of bail under a statute, greater the need for speedy trial.

“Inordinate delay in the conclusion of the trial and the higher threshold for the grant of bail cannot go together… The expeditious disposal of the trial is warranted considering the higher threshold set for the grant of bail in these statutes. Hence, the requirement of expeditious disposal of cases must be read into these statutes,” the Supreme Court interpreted in a judgment granting bail to former Tamil Nadu Minister V. Senthilbalaji in a PMLA case.

The “rigours” of bail provisions of PMLA and UAPA would “melt away” if there was no likelihood for the completion of the trial in a reasonable time and if the undertrial prisoner had already suffered incarceration for a substantial part of the prescribed sentence under the law, a Bench headed by Justice AS Oka, who authored the judgment, observed.

The judgment is the latest in a recent string of verdicts from the apex court which nip at the two draconian laws. The past years have witnessed Central agencies employ UAPA and PMLA to detain Ministers, activists, lawyers, students leaders and journalists for months, even years together, as undertrial prisoners.

“Provisions regarding the grant of bail, such as Section 45 of the PMLA, cannot become a tool which can be used to incarcerate the accused without trial for an unreasonably long time… Section 45 does not confer power on the state to detain an accused for an unreasonably long time,” the Supreme Court held.

Justice Oka wrote that “some day” the constitutional courts of the country have to sit up and decide whether the state should pay compensation to persons who spent years behind bars as an undertrial only to eventually get a “clean acquittal”.