Responding to the Court’s observation that the ED at the time of arrest would also have to look at the material that may be favouring the accused, ASG Raju said,
“Court has held that giving reasons by the officer is not equivalent to give merits or demerits”
Raju added that whenever the ‘reason’ word is used in criminal law, it means reasons and not merits or demerits of reasons.
The Court at this stage asked whether the argument also was that the power of court is much more and in-depth when considering the grant of bail under Section 45 of the PMLA.
Section 45, among other restrictions, states that a court before granting bail to the accused would have to see that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accused is not guilty of the money laundering offence.
“When you decide guilt, you have to see material which shows guilt and not material which does not show him as guilty and need not show that material on record…,” Raju said in response to the query.
The Court agreed.
“You may be correct that it is subjective satisfaction of the court and not the officer and thus court can see the material,” it said.
Source: Barandbench
