S. MURALIDHAR, J.

Introduction

1. In all these writ petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, one prayer is for a declaration that the second proviso to Section 5(1) of the Prevention of Money- laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) is ultra vires Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

2. All the Petitioners are facing proceedings under the PMLA as a result of an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) filed under Sections 3 and 4 PMLA leading to the filing of original complaints (OC) under Section 5 (5) PMLA. Consequently, provisional attachment orders have been issued under Section 5 (1) PMLA against the Petitioners. The Adjudicating Authority (AA) has served them with show cause notices (SCNs) under Section 8 PMLA. The challenge in these petitions is also, therefore, to the OCs, the SCNs, the provisional attachment orders and to all further proceedings in the aforementioned ECIR.

3. Although the above prayers in the petitions (other than the prayer concerning the challenge to the constitutional validity of the second proviso to Section 5 (1) PMLA) are to be dealt with by learned Single Judges of this Court, since the first prayer concerns the constitutional valid