Lawless Laws and the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court’s blessing for the PMLA shows its contempt for human rights and the Constitution.
To say that the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 is a Kafkaesque law is putting it mildly. Introduced in 2002 to tackle terror funding, the PMLA has been amended over the years to become a lawless law used at will to target political opponents and intimidate businessper- sons. The rate of conviction under the PMLA is abysmal—out of 5,422 cases, the Directorate of Enforcement has been able to obtain convictions against only 23 people—a conviction rate of less than 0.5%! This conviction rate also gives us a hint to the true purpose and nature of the law.