February 1, 2018
Amendments have been made in Prevention of Money-laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) through Finance Act 2018, the Ministry of Finance said in a notification on Thursday. These amendments aim at further enhancing the effectiveness of the Act, widen its scope, and take care of certain procedural difficulties faced by Enforcement Directorate (ED) in prosecution of PMLA cases. Major amendments proposed include measures to enhance effectiveness of PMLA such as amendment in definition of proceeds of crime.
The present amendment shall allow to proceed against property equivalent to proceeds to crimes held outside the country also. Other amendment include amendment in bail provisions which would make the applicability of bail conditions uniform to all the offences under PMLA, instead of only those offences under the schedule which are liable to imprisonment of more than three years. This will be a significant step forward in delinking the proceedings against scheduled offences and money laundering offences under PMLA.
