“Liberty of the individual is always a rule, and deprivation is the exception,” observed the Supreme Court while granting bail to Prem Prakash, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s aide, in an illegal mining-related case registered by the ED.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan held that Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act should not be construed in such a way that makes bail an impossibility in money laundering cases. Justice Viswanathan said, “Section 45 PMLA does not re-write this principle [that bail is the rule] to mean that deprivation is the norm and liberty is the exception.”
The court said bail is a must if the two conditions of Section 45 are satisfied – reasonable grounds to believe that the accused is prima facie innocent and that he would not commit any crime while on bail.
Justice Viswanathan referred to the top court’s judgment in Manish Sisodia’s case on August 9 and said that bail cannot be denied on the whims of the central agency.
The Supreme Court also said that the ED cannot violate an accused’s fundamental right to silence and force him to make a self-incriminatory statement in another case. “The ban on self-accusation and the right to silence, while one investigation or trial is underway, goes beyond that case and protects the accused in regard to other offences pending or imminent.”
Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren was granted bail in the PMLA case in June after five months of incarceration. Read here.
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