Four years after notice, the review of ED's PMLA powers has a bench. It does not yet have a date that undoes 2022.

The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to list for hearing a batch of review petitions against its own 2022 judgment. That judgment, in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary, upheld the Enforcement Directorate's powers of arrest, attachment and search-seizure under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. A listing is not a striking-down. The 2022 verdict still stands.

The bench is Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana. Kapil Sibal, appearing for Karti Chidambaram, said notices went out in August 2022 and that the pleas now needed a hearing. Four years of notice is a long wait for a review. It is not, by itself, a reversal.

The Chief Justice said the listing was to record consent on bench allocation. Sending the file back to the original combination, he said, would "break" three sitting benches. In view of urgency, this bench will hear it. The next date, he said, would come later. Urgency here is a reason to keep the file where it is. It is not a preview of the result.

On 31 July last year the court had said it would first hear maintainability. Review has a narrow door. The Directorate has proposed three preliminary maintainability issues. The review petitioners have proposed 13 questions. Three against 13 is the first fight: how wide the door is. This desk will not invent the text of those 13 questions, or of the three, because the card does not set them out.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta reminded the court that the 2022 admission bench issued notice only on two points — supply of the Enforcement Case Information Report to the accused, and the reverse burden under Section 24 of the PMLA. Notice on two points is not notice on the whole statute. If that 2022 frame holds, the review is already narrower than 13 questions.

The 2022 verdict, as restated on 20 August, is the architecture still in force. Money laundering is not an "ordinary offence." PMLA officers are "not police officers as such." The ECIR is not a first information report. Supplying the ECIR in every case is not mandatory if the grounds of arrest are disclosed. The twin bail conditions under Section 45 were upheld. Those five holdings are why a review of this judgment is a review of official power over an accused person.

Opposition parties have alleged that the law is used against political adversaries. That is an allegation about use. It is not a finding by this bench on Thursday. The original 2022 matter had drawn more than 200 petitions. This desk will not turn that number into a roll-call of parties or of accused.

The Chief Justice put a limit on what a review can do. They are justified, he said, in raising first of all preliminary issues — whether the review is maintainable. All of us are well aware that review has its own limitations. Sometimes we can have a different viewpoint but still, we cannot substitute. That last clause is the whole doctrine in one breath. A later bench may think differently and still be unable to rewrite the earlier page.

What this desk will not do is predict a striking-down, a reading-down, or a dismissal. It will not invent the next date. It will not write that the ECIR must now be supplied, or that Section 24 has fallen. Thursday did none of those things. Thursday assigned a bench so that three other benches would not be broken, recorded that maintainability comes first, and left 2022 on its feet.

Until the maintainability questions are heard, the public ledger is a four-year-old notice, a 2022 verdict that still defines arrest and attachment under the PMLA, two points on which notice was first issued, three preliminary issues from the Directorate, 13 questions from the reviewers, and a Chief Justice who has said a different viewpoint is not the same as a substitution. Official power over accused persons remains where Vijay Madanlal Choudhary left it. The review has a bench. It does not yet have a judgment.