New Delhi: Senior Congress chief P Chidambaram on Tuesday criticized the Prevention of Cash Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), stating that it’s being “fully misused” to focus on opposition leaders. He emphasised that if the Congress returns to energy, it will repeal the legislation and enact higher laws, reported information company PTI.
“This legislation has been fully misused and which is why I’ve been saying that if Congress comes again to energy, we are going to repeal this legislation and reenact a greater legislation. That is on prime of the agenda,” Chidambaram informed Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal in the course of the latter’s “Dil Se” YouTube programme that was launched on Tuesday.
Chidambaram clarified that the PMLA was not handed in the course of the UPA’s tenure however in the course of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee authorities. It was solely notified throughout Manmohan Singh’s regime as a consequence of strain from the Monetary Motion Activity Power (FATF), he stated, as per the PTI report.
He highlighted issues concerning the intensive powers granted to 1 investigative company beneath the PMLA, making it extra dominant than others. “This legislation has vested arbitrary and untrammelled energy upon one investigating company which is now extra highly effective than all the opposite investigating businesses,” the senior Congress chief stated.
Through the programme, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil claimed that the PMLA is “probably the most draconian legislation within the historical past of this nation”.
Speaking concerning the PMLA, Chidambaram additionally stated the schedule to this Act has made this Act worse. “The schedule was inserted within the authentic Act. It was a brief schedule with Half A and Half B. However this schedule has been amended twice or extra and main amendments had been made in 2013 and 2018,” he said, based on PTI.
He pressured that the enlargement of the schedule to the Act in the course of the UPA interval was a fallacious step.
“Schedule ought to have been saved tight. I admit that the enlargement of the schedule was clearly fallacious,” Chidambaram stated.
He criticized the Supreme Court docket’s verdict upholding the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) powers beneath the PMLA, calling it opposite to the well-settled ideas of the legislation and the assessment petition that has been filed is a complete one.
“Sadly, the assessment petition has not been posted for listening to. This should be reviewed and on the earliest,” he stated, the PTI report added.
Each Chidambaram and Sibal expressed issues that the PMLA is getting used in opposition to opposition leaders forward of the 2024 elections, with the ED allegedly focusing on them.
Chidambaram famous that ministers and even a chief minister had been arrested beneath the legislation which, he claimed, had by no means occurred earlier. “This isn’t the idea of federalism that had been considered by the founders. Think about if state authorities begins arresting Union ministers. Each minister belongs to a state… if the tables are turned and the state authorities begins doing it beneath common felony legal guidelines in opposition to Union ministers, governance will break down,” Chidambaram stated to which Sibal responded saying, “It has already damaged down,” PTI reported.
Chidambaram accused the ED of being politically motivated and advocated for the repeal of the PMLA. “The one manner is to repeal this legislation and represent a bunch of jurists to draft a correct prevention of cash laundering legislation,” Chidambaram stated.