“Process must not be turned into a punishment unto itself,” the Supreme Court held on Wednesday, emphasising that prolonged incarceration, if allowed to continue, would negate the constitutional safeguards available to accused persons even under stringent laws such as the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The court’s observations underline that these statutory restrictions cannot become an instrument for indefinite detention when the constitutional right to a speedy trial is jeopardised. Section 45 of the PMLA imposes stringent conditions for bail, requiring the court to give the prosecution an opportunity to oppose the application and, where it does so, to be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing the accused is not guilty and is unlikely to commit an offence while on bail.
“In a bail matter, especially in serious offences, the job of a Court is to balance the rights of the State with those of the arrestee,” noted a bench of justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M Pancholi, stressing that investigating agencies have a duty to complete their investigations expeditiously and cannot justify keeping an accused behind bars indefinitely when the trial is unlikely to conclude within a reasonable time. “The twin conditions under Section 45 of the PMLA cannot override the constitutional safeguards under Article 21 of the Constitution,” held the bench, reiterating a principle laid down by the Supreme Court while granting bail to former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in 2024.
The court made the observations while granting bail to Sanjay Sureka, an accused in an alleged ₹ 6,210.72-crore financial fraud and money laundering case involving a steel company, 62 shell companies and a large volume of documentary evidence. In the present case, the court found that Sureka had been in custody for more than 20 months for an offence carrying a maximum punishment of seven years. The prosecution involved 97 accused persons, 48 prosecution witnesses and approximately 15,000 pages of relied-upon documents, while the investigation against other accused persons was still pending.
The bench found that the scale of the prosecution made an early conclusion of the trial unlikely, even though the investigation against Sureka had been completed. With the investigation against Sureka complete, it found no justification for continuing his incarceration until the trial concluded.
“In a bail matter, especially in serious offences, the job of a court is to balance the rights of the State with those of the Arrestee,” said the bench, acknowledging that large-scale economic offences could cause extensive damage to the country’s financial system and justified stringent provisions under the PMLA. The bench said the trial court would have to examine thousands of pages of records and hear a large number of witnesses, making the proceedings a time-consuming exercise.
