IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that non-compliance with the mandatory requirements of Section 19 of the PMLA regarding informing the accused of the grounds for arrest and the court's duty to record reasons for remand renders the arrest unlawful, entitling the accused to bail.

JUDGMENT

Sashikanta Mishra, J.

The petitioners are in custody since 08.06.2023 having been remanded in Criminal PML Case No. 6 of 2023 of the Court of learned Sessions Judge, Khordha at Bhubaneswar for the alleged commission of offence under Section 3 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (for short, 'the Act') punishable under Section 4 of the said Act.

2. The above case has arisen out of a complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate (E.D.) under Section 44 of the PML Act. It is alleged in the complaint that both the petitioners are accused of committing offences under Sections 21(c) and 29 of the N.D.P.S. Act in Sahadevkhunta P.S. Case No.352 dated 27.10.2022. Said offences are predicate/schedule offences as per the PML Act. It is alleged that the petitioners and five other persons were found to be in possession of 10 kgs 394 grams of contraband brown sugar on their personal search, which is worth Rs.10.39 crores. Charge sheet has been submitted on 21.04.2023 in the said case under Sections 21(c)/29 of N.D.P.S Act read with Section 120(B) of IPC.

3. All these offences, as already stated, being scheduled offences as per the PML Act, investigation of the case under Sections 22/2(1)(n)(a) of PML Act was initiated after recording brief facts of the schedule offences in ECIR dated 14.11.2022 against the accused persons for alleged commission of the offence under Section 3 of the PML Act punishable under Section 4 of the said Act. On such facts, initially, an application was filed under Section 50 of the PML Act with prayer for production of the accused persons before the Special Court for their custodial interrogation by E.D. Since both of them were in custody in connection with the aforementioned P.S. Case. Learned Sessions Judge, by order dated 03.05.2023 granted such prayer of the E.D. by requesting the learned District and Sessions Judge, Balasore, under whose custody the accused persons then were, to spare them for being produced before his Court. Accordingly, both the accused persons were produced before the learned Sessions Judge, Khordha on 08.06.2023 and on the same day, the E.D. was directed to take them into remand for a period of four days, i.e. from 09.06.2023 to 12.6.2023. On 12.06.2023, on application being filed by the E.D., the period of remand was extended till 14.06.2023. On 14.06.2023, the accused persons were remanded to jail custody.

4. On 07.08.2023, the complaint under Section 44 of the P.M.L. Act was filed by the E.D.. On the same day, learned Sessions Judge took cognizance of the offence under Section 3 of the PML Act punishable under Section 4 of the said Act. Being thus remanded to custody, both the petitioners filed application for bail, which was heard and rejected by learned Special Judge (CBI Court No.l) on the same day.

5. Heard Mr. D.P. Dhal, learned Senior Counsel with Mr. B.S Dasparida for the petitioners and Mr. P.K. Ray, learned Special P.P. appearing for E.D.

6. The main plank of arguments advanced by Mr. Dhal, learned Senior Counsel, is violation of the mandatory requirements of Section 19 of the P.M.L. Act. In this context, Mr. Dhal would argue that Section 19 of the P.M.L. Act makes it mandatory for the Authorized Officer seeking to arrest the accused to inform him of the grounds of his arrest and further, while remanding the accused so arrested, the Court must record its reasons for believing that the offence under P.M.L. Act had been committed. In the instant case, the accused persons being in custody in connection with the case relating to the predicate offences were never informed of the grounds of their arrest in the present case. That apart, on mere application submitted by the E.D., the learned Sessions Judge allowed the petitioners to be taken on remand by it without recording reasons for his belief that the accused persons were prima facie guilty of the alleged offence. In other words, the order of remand, according to learned Senior Counsel is a product of non-application of j