“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
-
Benjamin Disraeli
In May 2025 at its 69th
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:
- How did the number reduce from 5297 in Aug-2024 to 911 in Dec-2024?
- 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.
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.
