New Delhi, March 17: Special courts dealing with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) have delivered judgments on the merits in connection with money laundering in 59 cases. Of these, conviction orders have been passed in 56 cases, convicting 124 accused in the cases filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) during the five-year period from April 1, 2021, to February 28, 2026.
According to information presented in Parliament on Tuesday, in a few cases, the accused have been acquitted or discharged due to acquittal or discharge in the underlying offence case, or for other reasons, without considering the ED case.
During this period, the ED has arrested 903 persons under the provisions of the PMLA, 2002, according to Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary, who responded in writing to a question in the Rajya Sabha.
The ED has also filed 4,377 Enforcement Case Information Reports (ECIRs) under the provisions of the PMLA, 2002.
During the same period, in 1,245 cases, charge sheets have been filed before the Special PMLA Courts, seeking the conviction of accused persons for money laundering offences and the confiscation of proceeds of crime.
In these cases, 447 supplementary charge sheets have also been filed before the Special Courts dealing with PMLA cases, Minister Pankaj Chaudhary added.
Following the amendment to the PMLA, effective from August 1, 2019, the ED is required to file a closure report with the Special PMLA Court in cases where no money laundering offence is made out.
"Since then, the ED has filed closure reports before the concerned Special Courts in 93 cases, where no money laundering offence is made out due to various reasons, such as the closure of the underlying offence case, cases where the court dealing with the underlying offence finds no offence committed related to the underlying offence defined under PMLA, or the quashing of the underlying offence case," the Minister added.