Judgment

Ms. Ritu Bahri, J.

The petitioners Pankaj Bansal and Basant Bansal have filed these petitions challenging vires of Section 19 (1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (for short “PMLA”) and have further made prayer for quashing the orders dated 15.06.2023, 20.06.2023 and 26.06.2023 (Annexures P-18, P-20 and P-21) respectively whereby they had been ordered to be remanded to the custody of respondent No.2 and then to judicial custody. Their prayer for declaring Section 19 (1) of PMLA as unconstitutional had been rejected on 20.07.2023. So far as, the relief claimed by the petitioners for quashing the orders (Annexures P-18, P-20 and P-21) is concerned, before considering the same, certain facts as emanating from the record are required to be mentioned. The same are that several FIRs had been registered against various IREO group of companies viz., IREO Pvt. Ltd., IREO Grace Realtech, IREO Waterfront Pvt. Limited and IREO Fiveriver Pvt. Limited etc. on the basis of complaints submitted by several buyers who had alleged that they had booked plots in projects being developed by the above cited companies and had handed over different amounts of money. However, they