Udhaw Singh v. Enforcement Directorate — 2025 INSC 247

The stalled prosecution and the constitutional limit upon custody

An accused prosecuted under Section 3 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 had spent one year and two months in custody while only one of the 225 proposed witnesses had been examined. The Supreme Court had to determine whether the special bail restriction could justify continued detention where the trial appeared unlikely to conclude within the next several years, having regard to the constitutional reasoning adopted in V. Senthil Balaji.

Section 45 did not authorise an unreasonable period of detention

The Court applied the principle that Section 45(1)(ii) cannot become an instrument for keeping an undertrial in custody for an unreasonably long period when the prosecution has no realistic prospect of completing the trial within a reasonable time. The statutory difficulty of obtaining bail did not remove the constitutional courts' obligation to protect the right under Article 21 where the process itself threatened to consume years before guilt could be determined.

This approach concerned the relationship between the special restriction and a demonstrated failure of timely adjudication, rather than a general abandonment of the conditions governing money laundering bail. The Court relied on the combination of time already spent in custody, the scale of the remaining witness evidence and the limited progress of the prosecution, through which the constitutional concern became established on the record before it.

The reasoning adopted from V. Senthil Balaji required attention to the punishment attached to the offence, the stringent threshold for release and any statutory limit relevant to completion of the trial. Those considerations informed what could reasonably be required of an undertrial whose guilt remained undecided, making the assessment dependent upon the relevant statutory setting and actual prospects of adjudication rather than upon a fixed calendar period applicable to every prosecution.

Constitutional jurisdiction responded to the practical prospect of delay

The adopted reasoning recognised that constitutional courts could exercise their powers under Articles 32 or 226 when the record established that the trial could not finish within a reasonable time and continued detention would defeat rights protected by Part III of the Constitution of India. The power described was therefore grounded in constitutional protection, whose exercise remained connected with the judicial finding about the likely duration of the proceedings.

A mere assertion that a case involved many witnesses would not fully reproduce the circumstances considered here, because the Court had the additional evidence that only one witness had been examined after a substantial period of incarceration. The remaining prosecution workload supported the conclusion that custody would continue for years if release were refused, giving practical substance to the Article 21 concern identified by the Court.

The judgment did not decide an exact point at which every money laundering detention becomes excessive, since reasonable duration depends upon the offence, its sentencing framework and the surrounding proceedings. Its conclusion arose from the particular record demonstrating a serious mismatch between the time already endured and the realistic time still required for completion of the case.

The discretionary exceptions remained part of the principle applied

The Court reproduced the qualification that constitutional relief may be declined where substantial responsibility for an undue delay rests with the accused. That qualification prevents a person from creating the obstacle to trial and then relying upon the resulting delay as an unconditional basis for release, because the constitutional power remains an exercise of judicial discretion informed by the cause of the prolonged proceedings.

The adopted reasoning also preserved an exception where the accused's antecedents establish a real possibility of becoming a threat to society if released. These qualifications demonstrate that concern about delayed trial does not eliminate examination of conduct and risk, although the restrictions of Section 45 cannot themselves authorise custody which defeats the right to timely determination in circumstances justifying constitutional intervention.

The apparently contrary decision turned upon a different record

The Court considered Union of India through the Assistant Director v. Kanhaiya Prasad, in which bail had been granted after a shorter period of custody without a finding that the trial could not conclude within a reasonable time. It held that the cancellation of bail there did not depart from the principles in K.A. Najeeb or V. Senthil Balaji, because the necessary factual basis for applying those principles had not been established in that case.

The distinction prevented the two outcomes from being treated as conflicting legal commands divorced from their records. A decision refusing to sustain bail without the relevant finding about trial duration did not foreclose relief where prolonged custody and demonstrably slow progress supplied that finding, as they did in the application before the Court.

The order secured participation in the continuing trial

The appellant was directed to be produced before the Special Court within one week so that release could be arranged upon appropriate conditions. The terms had to secure his timely presence whenever the Special Court required it, together with cooperation towards concluding the proceedings and surrender of a passport if he possessed one, ensuring that restoration of liberty preserved the continuation of the prosecution.

The appeal was allowed through that direction without deciding the accusation of money laundering on its merits. The result protected the undertrial against custody whose likely duration had become constitutionally unacceptable on the assessed record, while preserving the Special Court's authority to supervise attendance and proceed towards a determination of guilt.

Source: Udhaw Singh v. Enforcement Directorate · 2025 INSC 247