Section 50

The Punjab and Haryana High Court refused regular bail to Sandeep Gupta, accused by the Enforcement Directorate of laundering about ₹236 crore diverted from Richa Industries Limited through shell entities (paras 1-2, 8). It held that where material prima facie shows a specific, active role, especially through misuse of corporate or fiduciary structures, bail must be approached with greater circumspection (paras 6.1-7).

The Supreme Court held that courts can judicially review an arrest under Section 19(1) of the PMLA, and that the 'reasons to believe' must be supplied to the arrestee and must weigh exonerating material too, but declined to quash Arvind Kejriwal's arrest on that limited review. It referred to a larger Bench whether the 'need and necessity to arrest' is a separate ground of challenge, and released him on interim bail (paras 21, 36, 55, 65, 84-85).

The Supreme Court held that the Enforcement Directorate must, from now on, give every person arrested under Section 19 of the PMLA a written copy of the grounds of arrest, as a matter of course and without exception. Reading the grounds aloud is not enough under Article 22(1). Finding the arrests of a father and son made in haste and without bona fides, it set aside the arrests, the remand orders and the High Court's orders (paras 22, 35-36).