As many as 17 Opposition parties on Wednesday expressed “deep apprehensions” about the long-term implications of the Supreme Court verdict that upheld the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) amendments, and strongly pitched for a review.
In a joint statement, the parties said the judgment will strengthen the hands of a government that “indulges in political vendetta” to target its opponents in a “mischievous and malicious manner” and expressed hope that this “dangerous verdict will be short-lived”.
Among the parties that have signed the joint statement are Congress, TMC, DMK, AAP, NCP, Samajwadi Party, Shiv Sena, CPI(M), CPI, IUML, RSP, MDMK, RJD and RLD, among others.
Some of the leaders who have signed the joint statement include Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, Sharad Pawar, Ram Gopal Yadav, Derek O’Brien, TR Baalu, Elamaram Kareem, Binoy Viswam, Kapil Sibal and Narain Dass Gupta.
The Congress and the Shiv Sena too tried to raise the issue of alleged misuse of central investigating agencies by the Government in the Rajya Sabha, but chairman M Venkaiah Naidu disallowed them from doing so.
Kharge and his colleague Deepender Singh Hooda, Shiv Sena’s Priyanka Chaturvedi and AAP’s Sanjay Singh and Raghav Chadha gave notices under rule 267 but they were not admitted. “You know my position. These are all notices not worth to be taken up under 267,” Naidu said.
Rule 267 provides for setting aside the business of the day to take up discussion on the issue being raised in such notice.
Kharge charged the Government of misusing the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Income Tax to target political rivals. The Government is using the investigating agencies with a vengeance as part of a plan to target political opponents as well as bring down democratically elected State Governments, he alleged seeking a discussion.
“I am not admitting it,” Naidu said.
Chaturvedi said her party leader and sitting Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut was arrested by the ED without informing the chairman. “As per rule 220 of the rule book, they should have kept you informed. Were they doing it? Are they undermining your constitutional position,” she asked Naidu. She alleged that the country was moving towards ED-raaj without any accountability, which is worrying. But her notice too wasn’t admitted.
“We place on record our deep apprehension on the long-term implications of the recent Supreme Court judgment upholding, in entirety, the amendments to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002, without examining whether some of these amendments could have been enacted by way of the Finance Act,” the statement put out by the Opposition parties said .
The parties said, “They hold and will always hold” the Supreme Court in the highest respect. “Yet, we are compelled to point out that the judgment should have awaited the verdict of a larger Bench for examining the constitutionality of the Finance Act route to carry out amendments.”
“These far-reaching amendments strengthened the hands of a Government, indulging in the political vendetta of the worst kind, by using these very amended laws relating to money laundering and investigation agencies, to target its political opponents in a mischievous and malicious manner,” the Opposition parties alleged.