Benefit Of Proviso To Section 45(1) PMLA Cannot Be Denied To Woman Merely Because She Is Highly Educated Or Sophisticated Or MP Or MLA: SC

The Court said that the observation of the Court in Saumya Chaurasia v. Directorate of Enforcement that “persons of tender age and woman who are likely to be more vulnerable, may sometimes be misused by the unscrupulous elements” is vastly different from saying that proviso to Section 45(1) of the PMLA applies only to “vulnerable woman”.

The Court observed thus while allowing Criminal Appeals challenging the judgment and order passed by the Single Judge of the Delhi High Court in Bail Application where the learned Judge refused to grant bail to the Appellant K. Kavitha. 

The bench of Justice B.R.Gavai and Justice K.V. Vishwanathan observed, “This Court, in the carefully couched paragraph extracted above used the phrase “persons of tender age and woman who are likely to be more vulnerable, may sometimes be misused by the unscrupulous elements”. This is vastly different from saying that the proviso to Section 45(1) of the PMLA applies only to “vulnerable woman”. Further, this Court in the case of Saumya Chaurasia (supra) does not say that merely because a woman is highly educated or sophisticated or a Member of Parliament or a Member of Legislative Assembly, she is not entitled to the benefit of the proviso to Section 45(1) of the PMLA.”

Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, D.S. Naidu and Shri Vikram Chaudhri appeared for the Appellant and Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju appeared for the Respondent.

The Court perused the record and found that in the CBI case a charge sheet has been filed and in the ED case a complaint has been filed. As such, according to the Court, custody of K. Kavitha is not necessary for investigation.

The Court mentioned the decision in Manish Sisodia v. Directorate of Enforcement which is based on the same facts and where it was noted, “there are about 493 witnesses to be examined and the documents to be considered are in the range of about 50,000 pages, the likelihood of the trial being concluded in near future is impossible.”

The Court further observed, “the proviso to Section 45(1) of the PMLA would entitle a woman for special treatment while her prayer for bail is being considered.”

The Court perused Section 45(1) PMLA and observed, “the proviso permits certain category of accused including woman to be released on bail, without the twin requirement under Section 45 of the PMLA to be satisfied.”

The Court observed, “when a statute specifically provides a special treatment for a certain category of accused, while denying such a benefit, the Court will be required to give specific reasons as to why such a benefit is to be denied.”

Accordingly, the Court allowed the Appeal.