PMLA 4/8 - Capital

“Zuerst kamen sie” - Martin Niemöller

Scene: A gleaming corporate office in Mumbai. Employees buzz around unsuspectingly until three stern Enforcement Directorate (ED) officers walk in, flanked by an administrative officer. At the top floor, inside a glass cabin, sits Rajat Malhotra, founder of a successful export firm, known equally for his sharp suits and sharper mind.

RAJAT MALHOTRA (smiling wryly as ED officials enter): Gentlemen, unless you’re here with a cheque, I assume this is not a courtesy call?

ED OFFICER 1 (producing a thick file): Mr. Malhotra, we’re exercising powers under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA). Your corporate headquarters and warehouse are now attached.

RAJAT (raising an eyebrow): Attached? What is this? On what basis?

ED OFFICER 2: “This” sir, is Proceeds of Crime. Linked to a money laundering offence.

RAJAT: Ah yes, I’ve heard about it. You have been investigating something. But that offence, alleged I may say, was committed by the previous owners. Me or my company had nothing to do with it. The offence, I believe, happened in 1984? PMLA was enacted in 2002. That’s like taking my car away because the person I bought a motorcycle from forgot to wear a helmet before helmets were invented..

ED OFFICER 1: Yes. But the courts have upheld that money laundering is a continuing offence. So if the tainted property still exists, or if we can trace its value anywhere, we can attach it today. Doesn’t matter when the predicate offence occurred or who owns the property now.

RAJAT (leaning forward): So you're enforcing today’s law on yesterday’s act and punishing tomorrow’s business?

ED OFFICER 3 (smiling): That’s one way to put it…

RAJAT: Even if you can’t find the specific assets from back then?

ED OFFICER 2: Yes! The PMLA allows us to attach equivalent value. So if the Rs. 10 crore you allegedly laundered is untraceable, but you now if own a warehouse or flat or factory or shop or bank account or shares worth Rs. 10 crores – we seize that instead.

RAJAT: Do I at least get to pick which Rs. 10 crore you take? Or is that too democratic? And I will remind you that this is investment money. White, taxed, declared. And this warehouse? It's operational. It's not some benami farm.

ED OFFICER 1: Doesn’t matter. The law doesn't discriminate between dormant and operational capital. We attach book value, not market value. Your books still show the warehouse at Rs. 10 crore.

RAJAT (eyes narrowing): It was bought a decade ago. It’s worth four times that today.

ED OFFICER 3: Well, congratulations on the appreciation. But we aren’t valuers. The law goes by what’s on record. Actually your accountant helped us there.

RAJAT: You know there’s an old saying, “It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.”

ED OFFICER 2: We actually have a different approach – be legally precise, but economically blind

RAJAT (scoffing): Why not just take my office chairs too? Or staff uniforms?

ED OFFICER 1 (checking the list): Actually, office equipment is part of the inventory frozen. Also, please vacate all floors. We’re taking possession.

RAJAT (stunned): Possession? My employees are still in there! My operations team, my engineers! You plan to boot them out?

ED OFFICER 3: Yes. We're empowered to take control, including physical assets. Occupants will be given 24 hours to vacate.

RAJAT (furious): This is economic sabotage! You don’t just take possession; you bleed a business dry. Capital isn’t just cash and property – it’s the flow of capital that gives the economy its lifeblood. When you seize a company’s office, freeze its account, or take possession of its warehouse, you’re not just punishing a criminal. You’re choking an enterprise. The banks will lose their collateral. Employees will lose their jobs. Entire families will lose their source of income. Customers lose trust. And the economy loses momentum. You pause operations, you kill everything.

ED OFFICER 2 (dryly): The economy is... an unfortunate externality in this process.

RAJAT: And what happens to my bank loan against this warehouse? It’s mortgaged!

ED OFFICER 1 (flipping a page): Yes, like that Rajokri farmhouse — Rs. 120 crore asset, mortgaged to a bank. We attached that too and converted it into our “office”. The borrower lost it. The bank lost its security. Fair’s fair.

RAJAT (jaw clenched): So you evict me, confiscate a live operation, and kill my employees' livelihoods. All this before trial? Before a single witness has testified? You know there’s something called Article 19(1)(g) of the constitution, which guarantees the right to practice any trade or profession.

ED OFFICER 3: Yes. But under the amended law, we can even sell your property before conviction. It’s called non-conviction based confiscation, or NCBC.

RAJAT: Sounds like a medical condition

ED OFFICER 2: Yes. Symptoms may include loss of assets, dignity, and sanity.

RAJAT: And if I’m acquitted?

ED OFFICER 2 (shrugging): There’s no provision for that. No restoration, no compensation. Not even an apology! The law’s silent.

RAJAT: Brilliant. So what exactly are you going to do with my warehouse? Start packing ED-branded fidget spinners?

ED OFFICER 1 (deadpan): It could be repurposed. For documentation, maybe storage. We do have a lot of documentation and constantly need administrative space. National interest you see.

RAJAT (sarcastic): Of course. National interest. And in the meantime, my factory stalls, orders lapse, vendors drop off, staff scattered; and you’ll say the law is doing its job.

ED OFFICER 3: We’re fighting crime. Not managing your balance sheet, Mr. Malhotra.

RAJAT: What is the logic of possession here? Had it been shares instead of property, will you vote in the AGMs? Do you take rent from seized flats? Do you become landlords? There are no timelines in this process. No trials. No outcomes.

ED OFFICER 2: That’s the beauty of it! The process itself is the punishment. We don’t need to wait for trial to conclude.

RAJAT: And when you call me for deposition, you’re asking for my entire family’s financial records. My wife’s jewellery? Mother’s pension receipts? Even my son’s tutoring bills?

ED OFFICER 2: If he’s connected to your finances, yes. Under PMLA, we can ask for detailed disclosures – not just from you, but from all linked individuals.

RAJAT (bitter now): You realize what all this does to investor sentiment, right? Foreign capital doesn’t like uncertainty. What message do we send when a legally acquired asset can be seized because someone else, somewhere in the chain of ownership, might have committed a crime decades ago? They’ll stop investing in the country.

ED OFFICER 1: We’re FATF compliant. Foreign investors will adjust. Everyone has faith in the legal system.

RAJAT: You think capital adjusts? No. Capital escapes.

(Pauses. He looks around the office one last time. The lights still buzz. His employees, unaware, continue working on their screens.)

RAJAT (grimly): This isn’t economic enforcement. It’s economic execution.

ED OFFICER 3 (quietly): We are neither economists nor harbingers of justice, Mr. Malhotra. We are enforcers.

[Fade out to the ED seal being fixed on the main gate. A business choked. A room emptied. Years go by. No trial, no verdict, just silence where capital once flowed.]

PMLA 3/8 - History

“Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.”

- Valery Legasov, Chernobyl (2019)

PMLA continues to evolve as one of India’s most controversial laws. When accused of being draconian in its drafting and implementation, successive governments have deflected blame, claiming the law was crafted by the other guys. In truth, both major national parties have played significant roles in its enactment, amendment, and weaponization. While the law existed in relative obscurity for over a decade, its traction as a tool of state power surged after the 2018 amendments.

This chapter takes a deep dive into the inception, evolution, and, at times, the institutional misrepresentations and legal distortions that have shaped the rise of PMLA, revealing how a law meant to curb financial crime became a symbol of overreach. 

1988 – Vienna Convention

• The UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances
• First major international treaty that called on member countries to criminalize money laundering
• Drug trafficking and human trafficking are the major contributors to terror financing
• In the future, terror financing may take on new forms (turned out to be true as in the modern era the major sources of terror financing are cyber-crimes, data piracy, and spyware)

Conclusion: The evil was money laundering itself – not any specific crime

 

1989 – FATF

• Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was established by the G7 nations
• Aim: To develop and promote policies to combat money laundering and terror financing
• 1990: The FATF issued 40 Recommendations, which became the global benchmark for anti-money laundering (AML) efforts
• FATF Blacklist: List of jurisdictions that the FATF deems uncooperative
• Blacklisting has often led to sanctions from developed economies and deters foreign investment

Effect on India

• India is not a member of the G7 and did not become a member to the FATF till 2010
• However, India faced various international pressures under the Vienna Convention, FATF, and the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering
• This resulted in the Prevention of Money Laundering Bill in 1998.

 

1998 – The Prevention of Money Laundering Bill

The 40 Recommendations of FATF required two core legal actions:

• Criminalization of the act of money laundering
• Power to the state to attach and confiscate properties earned out of proceeds of crime

However, the Indian Money Laundering Bill included conditions such as:

• Presumption of guilt (guilty until proven innocent)
• Twin bail conditions (proof of innocence before the trial)

Draconian Legislature

• The conditions of presumption of guilt and twin bail conditions were not the requirements of the FATF
• No G7 country provides for twin bail conditions or presumption of guilt in their AML statutes
• These provisions were British-era legal devices to suppress dissent in colonies like India: not to combat financial crime
• They stood in stark contrast to post-independence constitutional values and are not a part of any developed country
• These conditions indicate a failure to decolonize India’s legal psyche, prioritizing state control over individual rights

 

1999-01 – Standing Committee Report

The Prevention of Money Laundering Bill was referred to the Standing Committee on Finance chaired by Shri Shivraj Patil. The Committee raised sharp criticisms, reflecting concerns about the Bill’s overreach and potential for abuse:

• The reverse burden of proof violated the principle of innocence until proven guilty
• The ED’s authority to arrest without warrants, attach property provisionally and indefinitely, conduct raids, and record admissible statements was seen as overly broad, lacking judicial oversight, and risking misuse
• The definition of “proceeds of crime” and “money laundering” was ambiguous
• Too many minor offences were included in the list of scheduled offences like falsification of accounts and imitation of firearms
• Lack of clarity on procedural protections

Effect

• The Committee’s recommendations were largely ignored
• Rather than heeding the warnings, successive governments treated the Committee’s critique as a rulebook for implementation
• Contentious provisions were not only retained but also later amplified

 

2002-05 – Enactment

• The Bill was reintroduced in the Parliament in 2002 and received Presidential assent in 2003
• The Bill was notified with rules only in 2005
• During this time both the NDA and UPA governments stayed under constant FATF pressure to enact the AML laws.

 

2005-12 – Amendments

Several amendments were introduced during 2005-12, most notably:

• Definition of money laundering was expanded
• Introduction of concept of attachment of equivalent value of property
• Chargesheet was no longer required for raids
• The schedule of offences was expanded with each amendment

Analysis

• PMLA included harsh provisions because it was envisioned as a law to combat international drug trafficking and human trafficking to stop terrorist funding
• Harsh provisions were justified by calling money laundering as a heinous crime
• While the schedule of offences was expanded, there was no dilution in the penal provisions
• Now PMLA could be invoked even for petty crimes (eg. copyright violation) or crimes having nothing to do with money (eg.  murder)

 

2017 – Nikesh Tarachand Shah

In Nikesh Tarachand Shah vs. Union of India, a two-judge Supreme Court Bench, led by Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, struck down the twin conditions for bail as unconstitutional, citing the following reasons:

• Requiring proof of innocence in the predicate offence was arbitrary, as PMLA focuses on money laundering, and not the predicate offence.
• The twin conditions inverted the fundamental principle of innocence until proven guilty, clashing with Article 21 of the constitution
• The penalties applied uniformly to all offenses, regardless of their severity, hence being disproportionate
• Making bail nearly impossible, the accused was punished by the procedure rather than the conviction

Effect: The ruling was a landmark victory for liberty, emphasizing that economic offenses, while serious, cannot override constitutional protections.

2018 – Finance Act (Bill?)

• In 2017 and 2018, the Finance Act was passed as a Money Bill, i.e. without the assent of the Rajya Sabha
• The PMLA was amended via this Finance Act (Bill?) and the twin conditions for bail were restored with minor changes
• The presumption of guilt and stringent bail criteria remained, failing to fully resolve the constitutional concerns of the Supreme Court.
• PMLA saw a sudden increase in activity post enactment of the 2018 Finance Act (Bill?)

This move drew widespread criticism:

• The government made an intentional evasion by bypassing the Rajya Sabha where the government lacked a majority
• The amendment merely sidestepped judicial concerns rather than addressing them

Challenge

• This move by the government has been challenged before the Supreme Court in Roger Mathews vs. Union of India
• The Supreme Court has criticized the government for passing the Finance Act as a Money Bill in an interim order
• However, the Supreme Court is yet to rule on the changes already enacted by the Finance Act (Bill?). The matter has been pending for 7 years.

 

2019 Amendments

• Money laundering was now a continuing offence, i.e. even if the scheduled offence had occurred in 1947, the ED could attach properties and prosecute persons under the Act passed in 2002.
• Explanation added to the definition of Money Laundering: “and” was effectively changed to “or”. Now any of the activities in the sequence of money laundering such as concealment, possession, acquisition or use, and projecting or claiming are money laundering offences independently.
• Non-Conviction Based Confiscation: The Government now has the right to confiscate the attached properties before the trial was concluded, i.e. before any conclusion of conviction or acquittal was reached.
• Once again, the law was made more stringent without dilution of the penal provisions

 

2022 – Vijay Madanlal Choudhary

The Supreme Court upheld the PMLA regime including the twin conditions, reverse burden, ECIR secrecy, and property attachment. The reasons given by the Supreme Court are as such:

• The Parliament, as the people’s representative, had the wisdom and authority to enact stringent laws like PMLA to combat money laundering, a global scourge.
• India’s international obligations under FATF

Analysis

• The Court’s deference to parliamentary wisdom raises a troubling precedent: if legislative intent is sacrosanct, no law – however draconian – can be challenged
• This undermined the Supreme Court’s role as a guardian of the constitution
• The 2018 amendments, passed via a disputed Money Bill, question whether they truly reflect Parliament’s will, as the Rajya Sabha’s input was curtailed.

 

Future – Roger Mathews vs. Union of India

• This case challenges the passing of the Finance Act 2017 and 2018 as Money Bills
• The 5-judge bench has declared that certain provisions regarding tribunal appointments were unconstitutional
• The core issue was referred to a larger 7-judge bench, which is still pending

 

Conclusion

• The PMLA was introduced under global pressures, but was enacted by both major national parties
• The FATF has often been blamed for the draconian provisions of PMLA, but those provisions are inherently Indian in nature
• Judicial intervention was overruled by unconstitutional, unparliamentary, and undemocratic amendments
• The Supreme Court failed to uphold its role as a guardian of the constitution

What began as an international obligation to combat drug trafficking has, in India, evolved into a powerful domestic statute marked by opacity, overreach, and constitutional strain. The Prevention of Money Laundering Act has not merely expanded in scope – it has shed the checks and balances that typically anchor criminal law in democratic societies.

From the early warnings of the Standing Committee to the surgical critiques of Justice Nariman, every opportunity to refine the Act has been met with procedural shortcuts or legislative indifference. And while the Supreme Court has now upheld the law’s architecture, key questions remain unresolved – including the manner in which the law was amended, the bypassing of Parliament’s upper house, and the fundamental inversion of due process. The history of PMLA, then, is not only a story of legislative evolution, but also one of democratic evasion. And that history is still being written.

PMLA 2/8 - Justification

“Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.”

-        George Bernard Shaw

History has consistently demonstrated that oppression is rarely the act of a single despot. It is more often the by-product of flawed systems that slowly erode public institutions and sentiment. The world’s most brutal regimes did not emerge overnight; but from a gradual collapse of governance and civic trust. Post-World War I sanctions crippled Germany’s economy, sowing the seeds of resentment that gave rise to Nazism. Adolf Hitler was a symptom, not the cause. The fall of the Soviet Union followed decades of systemic exploitation of the peasantry. Even the mighty Roman Empire collapsed under the weight of institutional decay, veiled by entertainment and fake austerity.

In the same vein, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) does not operate in isolation. It is the product of a larger socio-political environment: one where citizens have passively allowed the expansion of state power, often under the guise of good governance. A bloated government structure has demanded more revenue, leading to a taxation regime that views the public with inherent suspicion. Trust between citizen and state has eroded. In this environment, insecurity and inefficiency flourish, governance becomes reactive, and the seeds of corruption are sown deep.

There are three reasons why the ED has come to wield such power:

 

1.      Incentivization Metrics

Like any bureaucracy, the ED officers’ performance is evaluated through quantifiable metrics: number of arrests, recoveries of assets, filing of prosecution complaints, and conviction rates. This target-based model inevitably distorts investigative priorities. Once a case is registered and an arrest has been made, there is institutional pressure to justify the action – regardless of the strength of evidence. This may take any fair, unfair, legal, or illegal means. Given the impetus on revenue collections, the ED also has a mandate to recover monies to fill in government coffers. With this, there is a reputational target associated in terms of which officer makes how many arrests. These are all natural phenomena of any target-based profession.

The trials in PMLA cases face long pendency in courts. This structure offers no incentive to improve the quality of investigations. Instead, it encourages procedural aggression to meet administrative goals in terms of recoveries and arrests. Any organization operating under such a system, where performance is based on action, not outcomes, will behave similarly.

The ED also takes little responsibility for the speed of the trial repeating that it is only an investigating authority and have no role once the trial commences. However, this argument is forgotten during bail hearings. During such bail hearings, the ED not only vehemently opposes bails, but also appeals in higher forums where courts do grant bails.

 

2.      Commodification of Power

In India today, power is increasingly transactional. Whether it’s a street-level traffic cop or a member of Parliament, positions of authority are attained not through merit, but through money and influence. This commodification of power means that public office is seen as an investment – one that must yield returns. Naturally, the holders of such positions, both significant and insignificant, must endeavour to extract value from them, fuelling a self-reinforcing cycle of corruption.

This environment breeds contempt for institutions themselves. Recent incidents underscore this erosion: the outgoing SEBI Chairperson was denied a proper farewell; the Supreme Court has openly called for introspection as public faith in the judiciary wanes; PMLA cases have been likened to overly misused domestic violence charges. When positions are bought, not earned, there is little incentive to uphold the dignity they demand. Power is no longer a responsibility – it is an asset to be exploited.

Even the machinery responsible for appointments is affected. This is not an aberration or a one-off instance anymore. It has become a feature of administration. When appointments to positions of oversight are themselves up for sale, accountability vanishes. The system becomes a network of quid pro quo – and the abuse of office becomes not the exception, but the rule.

 

3.      Unchecked Powers

The PMLA grants the ED sweeping powers, particularly under Sections 24 and 50. These provisions invert the principle of innocent until proven guilty and enable arrests, attachment, recording of statements, and raids with minimal judicial scrutiny. Even the raids do not need any judicial warrant which goes against the principles of life and liberty under Article 21 of the constitution. Statements made before ED officials are admissible in court, unlike with the police. Safeguards that apply to other investigating authorities are conspicuously absent here.

This legal architecture places enormous, unaccountable power in the hands of a large and growing organization. Like any bureaucratic machine, the ED has its share of under-motivated or under-skilled officers – but when everyone is empowered to act without meaningful checks, accountability dilutes. It results in a tragedy of the commons: if one officer can meet their targets through shortcuts, why should another work harder to build a robust case?

In fact, why shouldn’t the officer, just once in a while, abuse that power for personal gains – money, power, property, or even if just to meet a Bollywood celebrity. After all, everyone else is doing it.

The demands of the job are heavy. The tools at hand are overwhelming. The incentives are skewed. In such an environment, abuse is not an anomaly – it is an inevitability.

 

The rise of the ED and the gradual normalization of its excesses cannot be understood merely through the lens of statutory interpretation or isolated misuse. It is a reflection of a broader institutional decay – a public that has accepted overreach in the name of order, a system where positions of power are bought and sold, and a legal framework that rewards action over justice. If left unchecked, these forces will not just undermine the rule of law – they will redefine it entirely. Power without oversight does not drift toward justice – it hardens into habit. And habits, once institutionalized, become law. True accountability begins not just with reforming the ED, but with dismantling the culture that created and emboldened it. It is not the ED that threatens the rule of law, but our silence when we forget it.

PMLA 1/8 - Statistics

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

-        Benjamin Disraeli

In May 2025 at its 69^th Foundation Day, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) presented a glowing picture of its performance — a conviction rate of 94% and thousands of crores in attached properties.

A few months earlier, in August 2024, the Supreme Court had taken a less celebratory view. Frustrated by the lack of investigative depth in an ongoing matter, the Court noted that out of nearly 5,000 registered cases, only 40 had led to conviction. The Court questioned the ED’s reliance on oral statements, urging it to carry out scientific investigation instead. On a separate occasion, the court also observed that the ED keeps prolonging the investigation in order to keep an accused in jail without trial or bail.

The contrast reveals a deeper issue: that of pre-trial incarceration, delayed trials, procedural ambiguities, inconsistent data disclosure, and a blurred picture of how justice actually unfolds under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). This chapter takes a closer look at the statistics behind ED’s enforcement activity — and what they tell us about how the law functions on the ground.

 

Cases Registered

The ED often uses the term “cases” — but what qualifies as a case? According to a response in the Lok Sabha in Aug 2024, the ED had registered 5297 cases since 2014. Of these, 43 had concluded, with 40 ending in conviction — the source of the widely quoted 93% conviction rate.

In December 2024, another disclosure in the Rajya Sabha mentioned that 911 Prosecution Complaints (PCs) had been filed since 2019. Of these, 42 led to convictions and 257 are pending for trial.

This immediately raises a few questions:

1. How did the number reduce from 5297 in Aug-2024 to 911 in Dec-2024?
2. The bulk of the cases seem to be where neither a conviction is reached, nor a trial is pending. What is the fate of such cases?

Unfortunately, such questions were not raised in the parliament.

The answer lies in terminology. The 5297 “cases” are, in fact, ECIRs — Enforcement Case Information Reports — which are analogous to FIRs registered by the police. An ECIR signals the formal initiation of an investigation, although a significant amount of activity precedes its registration. Importantly, an ECIR is considered an internal document of the ED and is not subject to public scrutiny like an FIR.

A PC, on the other hand, is equivalent to a chargesheet. While ECIRs are used to announce overall caseload, they do not always lead to prosecution. This raises a key question: if the ECIR is not a formal registration of a case but merely an internal document, can it truly be regarded as a case?

Further ambiguity emerges from the Rajya Sabha disclosure. If 911 PCs were filed and trials are pending in 257 cases, while 42 have resulted in convictions, what is the status of the remaining 612 cases, i.e. approximately 67% of the total? Logically, one might assume these resulted in acquittals. However, the reality is stranger than logic. In most of these cases, the trial has not even commenced. Despite the filing of a PC and, in many cases, arrests, the proceedings remain stuck in a pre-trial stage. As a result, the accused may spend extended periods in jail awaiting a trial that has not even begun. Since 2019, over 67% PMLA cases have seen no commencement of trial, while trials are only underway in 28% cases.

So if PMLA is not reaching a high conviction rate and if trials are not even commencing, then why is PMLA and ED such a talked about topic?

 

Arrests

Arrest data on the ED website reveals the answer. By 2022, the ED had arrested 400 individuals. This number rose to 513 in 2023. The disclosure of Lok Sabha disclosure reveals that much of the arrest activity has happened only post 2020. In fact, 74% the accused under custody were arrested in 2023 and 2024 only. This surge suggests that the PMLA is being used more as a tool for prolonged incarceration rather than for concluding investigations, securing convictions, or repatriating the proceeds of crime to the public exchequer.

A similar pattern emerges in prosecution filings: of the total 1142 PCs filed since the inception of the PMLA till 2023, 911 were filed during 2019–2024. This indicates that the bulk of enforcement actions under the law have occurred in just the last six years of its 23-year existence. In fact, 55% of the PCs have been filed only after 2022, suggesting the increasing activity in the statute (reasons for such increased activity post-2018 will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 3).

The Supreme Court has also noted in the case of Vijay Madanlal Choudhary that the number of convictions during 2005-16 has remained zero and the highest number of convictions ever was four in 2016. Yet, the number of raids have increased every year.

Data from Annual Report, Directorate of Enforcement, FY 2024-25

Cases against politicians

In 2023, the ED sought to boost transparency by disclosing that out of 5906 ECIRs, warrants were issued in only 9% of cases and just 3% involved politicians. This appears to be an effort to showcase restraint and impartiality.

However, if the ECIR is truly an internal document, its selective use for such disclosures seems contradictory. The ECIR becomes conveniently visible when the ED wants to demonstrate low targeting of politicians or high activity, but invisible when it comes to measuring conviction rates. In essence, the ECIR is a good number only where the ED needs a large denominator.

 

Conclusion

  Data from Annual Report, Directorate of Enforcement, FY 2024-25 and enforcementdirectorate.gov.in

• 67% cases are pending for beginning of trial
• 74% of accused under custody were arrested after 2023
• 55% of PCs have been filed after 2022
• The ED relies on ECIR where a large denominator is useful (eg. proportion of cases against politicians) and concluded trials when a smaller denominator is useful (eg. conviction rate)
• Terms like "case," "ECIR," and "chargesheet" are deployed inconsistently across disclosures

The data paints a troubling picture of the ED’s functioning under the PMLA. While the agency projects a high conviction rate based on a minuscule number of concluded trials, the overwhelming majority of cases remain in limbo. The delays in trial commencement and a surge in arrests without corresponding convictions, raises serious concerns about due process and judicial fairness. The statistics suggest that rather than being an instrument of justice, the PMLA is increasingly being used as a tool of coercive power — one that allows for indefinite pre-trial incarceration and selective enforcement.

This is not to dismiss the seriousness of money laundering or the need for effective enforcement. But in any rule-of-law society, legal processes must serve justice — not just optics. Statistics should clarify; they should not obscure. The gap between public narrative and procedural reality calls for greater transparency, judicial oversight, and institutional accountability.