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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> </head> <body> <div style="font-family:Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size:12px; text-align:justify"> <table width="800" border="0" style="border:1px solid #ccc;padding:5px;" align="center" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> Supreme Court Action of informing the person arrested about the grounds of his arrest is a sufficient compliance of Section 19 of PMLA and Article 22(1) of the Constitution MANU/SC/1349/2023 - (15 Dec 2023) </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top">Ram Kishor Arora Vs. Directorate of Enforcement (Neutral Citation: 2023 INSC 1082)</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top" style="background-color:#FDEDCE">The present appeal is directed against the judgment passed by the High Court of, whereby the High Court has dismissed the petition seeking declaration that, the arrest of the Appellant by the Respondent Directorate of Enforcement (ED) was illegal and violative of the fundamental rights guaranteed to the Appellant Under Articles 14, 20 and 21 of the Constitution of India, and seeking direction to release the Appellant forthwith. The Appellant had also sought direction to quash the order of remand passed by the Special Court. 
The expression "as soon as may be" contained in Section 19 of PMLA is required to be construed as- "as early as possible without avoidable delay" or "within reasonably convenient" or "reasonably requisite" period of time. Since by way of safeguard a duty is cast upon the concerned officer to forward a copy of the order along with the material in his possession to the Adjudicating Authority immediately after the arrest of the person, and to take the person arrested to the concerned court within 24 hours of the arrest, the reasonably convenient or reasonably requisite time to inform the arrestee about the grounds of his arrest would be twenty-four hours of the arrest. 
The action of informing the person arrested about the grounds of his arrest is a sufficient compliance of Section 19 of PMLA as also Article 22(1) of the Constitution of India.In facts of the present case, it is not disputed that the Appellant was handed over the document containing grounds of arrest when he was arrested, and he also put his signature below the said grounds of arrest, after making an endorsement that "I have been informed and have also read the above-mentioned grounds of arrest." The Appellant in the rejoinder filed by him has neither disputed the said endorsement nor his signature below the said endorsement. 
The only contention raised is that he was not furnished a copy of the document containing the grounds of arrest at the time of arrest. Since the Appellant was indisputably informed about the grounds of arrest and he having also put his signature and the endorsement on the said document of having been informed, present Court held that there was due compliance of the provisions contained in Section 19 of PMLA and his arrest could neither be said to be violative of the said provision nor of Article 22(1) of the Constitution of India.Appeal dismissed.</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top" ></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top" >Tags : Arrest, Procedure, Compliance</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td> </tr> <tr>  <td align="left" valign="top">Source : newsroom.manupatra.com</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top">Regards</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top">Team Manupatra</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top">&nbsp;</td> </tr> </table> </div> </body> </html>