A money-laundering case built on three prosecution complaints, 97 accused, 48 witnesses and some fifteen thousand pages of documents is not a case that finishes quickly. In Sanjay Sureka @ Sanjay Kumar Sureka v. Directorate of Enforcement, Criminal Appeal No. 4904 of 2026 (2026 INSC 1124), decided on 14 October 2026, the Supreme Court granted regular bail to an accused who had spent about twenty months in custody in an alleged ₹6,210.72 crore laundering case, reiterating that the rigours of Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act cannot be used to keep an undertrial in jail indefinitely. The Court put it in one sentence: process must not be turned into a punishment unto itself.
The case in outline
The prosecution traces to the insolvency of Concast Steel and Power Ltd, whose corporate insolvency resolution process began in 2017. In September 2022 the CBI registered an FIR alleging a conspiracy to inflate the company turnover, obtain consortium credit from banks led by the State Bank of India, and divert the funds; the Enforcement Directorate registered its ECIR in March 2023. The ED alleges proceeds of crime of ₹6,210.72 crore routed through sixty-two shell companies with dozens of dummy directors, of which about ₹777 crore stands attached. The appellant was arrested on 18 December 2024. The Calcutta High Court refused regular bail in November 2025, and the matter reached the Supreme Court by special leave.
A Bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M. Pancholi decided two distinct questions: whether the arrest was vitiated for non-compliance with Section 19 PMLA, and whether, independently of that, continued detention could be justified.
The Section 19(2) challenge fails
The appellant pressed a procedural point: the material on which the arrest rested was forwarded to the Adjudicating Authority five days after the arrest, when Section 19(2) requires it to be sent "immediately". The Court declined to read a fixed clock into the provision. The statute prescribes no outer limit in hours; what it demands is that the material move expeditiously and contemporaneously with the arrest, and a practical delay attributable to the volume of records does not, by itself, invalidate the arrest. The core safeguards — grounds of arrest furnished, production before the Special Court within twenty-four hours — had been met.
Where the appeal succeeded: Article 21
The bail question went the other way. By the time the appeal was heard the appellant had spent roughly twenty months in custody. Three prosecution complaints had been filed between February 2025 and July 2026; the array of accused stood at ninety-seven; the documents ran to about fifteen thousand pages; and investigation against other accused remained pending. On that record the Court accepted that the trial could not realistically conclude in the near future.
The operative principle: the twin conditions of Section 45 PMLA regulate bail; they do not license indefinite pre-trial detention. Where custody is prolonged and trial is distant, the constitutional guarantee of personal liberty under Article 21 prevails, and bail should follow — a line of reasoning the Court anchored in its 2024 decision in Manish Sisodia v. Directorate of Enforcement, which the judgment expressly relies upon.
What the order directs
Why the decision matters in practice
For those defending PMLA matters, the judgment consolidates a now-settled sequence of argument. First, procedural challenges to arrest under Section 19 remain available but will be tested against substance, not stopwatch: counsel should look for failures of the core safeguards rather than counting days in the paperwork. Second, the custody-period argument is independent of the merits — it does not require the court to hold that the accused is likely innocent, only that the trial timeline makes continued detention disproportionate. The scale of the case paradoxically assists the accused here: the more voluminous the complaint and the longer the witness list, the harder it is for the prosecution to resist the inference that trial is years away.
For complainant banks and the prosecution, the lesson is equally direct: delay is the solvent of custody. Where the State wishes to resist bail in large economic-offence cases, demonstrating a concrete, near-term trial schedule matters more than reciting the gravity of the allegations.
The judgment is marked non-reportable, but it applies principles the Supreme Court has laid down in reportable decisions, and it will be cited in bail courts for the proposition that twenty months of PMLA custody with a distant trial calls for release on conditions. Each case still turns on its own custody period, trial progress and role attribution.
Note: this article summarises a judgment of the Supreme Court of India for general information. It is not legal advice, and it does not relate to any matter handled by this chamber.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the "twin conditions" of Section 45 PMLA?
Section 45 permits bail in money-laundering cases only if the public prosecutor is heard and the court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe the accused is not guilty and is not likely to offend while on bail. These conditions make PMLA bail far harder than ordinary bail — but the Supreme Court has repeatedly held they are not an absolute bar and must give way to Article 21 where incarceration becomes prolonged with no realistic prospect of an early trial.
Did the Court find the arrest illegal because material was forwarded late?
No. The appellant argued that a five-day delay in forwarding the arrest material to the Adjudicating Authority breached Section 19(2) PMLA. The Court rejected this: the Act fixes no rigid deadline, "immediately" means expeditiously in the circumstances, and practical delay in moving voluminous records does not vitiate an otherwise compliant arrest.
What conditions accompanied the bail?
Release on bail bonds to the satisfaction of the trial court with any further conditions it imposes, deposit of the passport with the trial court and no foreign travel without its permission, and a prohibition on influencing witnesses or tampering with evidence — with liberty to the State to seek cancellation on breach.
Does this decision mean the accused has been cleared?
No. The Court expressly recorded that its observations are confined to the bail question and are not findings on the merits. The trial on the prosecution complaints continues; bail only governs the accused's liberty while it does.