NEWSCOPE: THE PMLA WEAPON: PERFECTING THE PROCESS AS PUNISHMENT

INDISCRIMINATE arrests and being locked up in jail without trial was always the lot of the downtrodden and those without a voice.

- GURBIR SINGH

But now arbitrary detention has come to haunt those with means, businessmen and politicians who have fallen out with the establishment.

As individual liberties guaranteed under the Constitution shrink, it is chilling to realize the judiciary - mandated to protect personal freedom and the rule of law -is increasingly merging with the executive, and finding 'reasonable grounds' for the invasion of liberty.

What better example to illustrate this than the recent judgement by the Supreme Court upholding the draconian provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)! The PMLA, enacted in 2002 and implemented on July 1, 2005 for the laudatory purpose of flushing out economic crime, has in recent days been 'weaponized' via its implementing agency the Enforcement Directorate.

Though the PMLA was enacted by the NDA when L K Advani was Home Minister, it was ironically the Congress that implemented the Act in 2005. The PMLA was earlier a slow train in the Congress era; it has been fast-tracked since the Narendra Modi government came to power.

Sample this. The ED carried out 3,010 raids and attached 'proceeds of crime' worth Rs 99,356 crore under the PMLA over the last 8 years, since the NDA came to power in 2014. In contrast, only 112 raids were conducted and Rs 5,346 crore impounded between 2004-05 and 2013-14 during the tenure of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA).