So far, Rs 18,000 crore has been recovered from businessmen Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, and Mehul Choksi, who fled the country after committing bank fraud of thousands of crores. The Central Government gave this information to the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Sixty-seven thousand crore cases are pending in the Supreme Court related to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Justice AM Khanwilkar, Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, and CT Ravi Kumar are hearing the matter.
The Supreme Court is hearing petitions challenging the wide range of powers available to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for seizure, investigation, and attachment under the PMLA. Several senior lawyers, including Kapil Sibal, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, and Mukul Rohatgi, have argued before the SC on various aspects of the possible misuse of the recent PMLA amendments.
Only 313 have been arrested since 2002.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the central government in the Supreme Court, said that as of date, the Enforcement Directorate is probing 4,700 cases. Only 313 people have been arrested for these crimes since the PMLA in 2002.
33 lakh FIRs, but only 2,086 cases have been investigated.
Tushar Mehta said that during the last five years (2016-17 to 2020-21), 33 lakh FIRs were registered for such offenses, but only 2,086 cases were taken up for investigation under PMLA. However, it is significantly less as compared to other countries. Seven thousand nine hundred in Britain, 1532 in America, 4691 in China, 1036 in Austria, 1823 in Hong Kong, 1862 in Belgium, and 2764 in Russia have been registered annually under the Money Laundering Act.
Published by- Aashay Bhujbal
Edited by- Kritika Kashyap
