Holding that the twin conditions under Section 45 of the PMLA cannot stand in the way where treatment inside prison has become a mere formality, the Punjab and Haryana High Court granted interim bail to a 76-year-old man who has been in custody for over five years. The Court confined itself to health and prolonged custody, and expressed no view on the merits.
Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has granted interim bail on medical grounds to a 76-year-old man in custody in a money laundering case for more than five years, holding that the rigours of Section 45 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 cannot operate as a bar where a person is so medically unfit that treatment within prison walls has become a formality [Davinder Singh Nirwal @ Dev v. Directorate of Enforcement].
A Division Bench of Justice Anoop Chitkara and Justice Harmeet Singh Deol allowed the petition under Section 483 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, granting interim bail from September 11 to December 21, 2026, with liberty to seek an extension if the petitioner’s health does not improve. The order was authored by Justice Chitkara.
The background
The proceedings arise from an ECIR registered in March 2013 by the Enforcement Directorate, traceable to a predicate FIR registered in March 2013 at Police Station Fatehgarh Sahib under Section 21 of the NDPS Act read with offences under the IPC and the Arms Act. The allegations against the petitioner are of smuggling 925 kilograms of ketamine to China and a tonne of pseudoephedrine to Canada. The police are also said to have seized ten kilograms of pseudoephedrine and 500 grams of intoxicating powder from him, leading to a further FIR at Police Station Patiala. These allegations have not been tested at trial.
This was the petitioner’s second approach to the High Court. His counsel confined the submissions strictly to medical grounds, reserving the right to move on the merits and on prolonged pre-trial custody should the medical bail be refused or not extended. It was submitted that the petitioner is unable to attend even to his personal needs, that he has undergone open spinal surgery but requires continuing specialised care not available in jail, and that he is not a flight risk since the documentary evidence is already with the Enforcement Directorate. Counsel offered, on instructions, to accept any stringent conditions the Court thought fit, including a mechanism for revocation.
What the Enforcement Directorate argued
Additional Solicitor General Satya Pal Jain, appearing for the agency, opposed the plea. It was submitted that the petitioner had sought to evade summons from 2016 and was arrested with great difficulty, that he would be a flight risk if released, and that the twin conditions under Section 45 of the PMLA remained unsatisfied. The agency alleged that he had purchased a large number of properties in India in the name of his son, who is also an accused and is stated to be absconding. The Enforcement Directorate further submitted that the petitioner already stands convicted and sentenced in two other FIRs, and has completed his sentence in a third registered under the Prisons Act.
On the medical aspect, the agency’s position was that his care in custody, including the spinal surgery, had been attended to by the jail authorities and that he could be shifted to a government hospital if required. It also contended that a successive application was not maintainable since bail had earlier been dismissed on merits.
The Bench recorded that although the reply was to be confined to medical grounds, its focus lay largely on the merits, and made clear that it was considering the plea only on medical grounds and prolonged custody. It also noted that there was no specific denial of the petitioner’s medical condition, either in the reply or during arguments.
‘Unhealthy old age is a curse’
Before turning to the facts, the Bench set out the purposes of incarceration, deterrence, retribution, the protection of society and the reassurance of victims, and observed that the reformative rationale of modern imprisonment loses its force in certain cases:
“Reforming the inmates to prepare for their re-integration into society as a social philosophy behind modern-day prisons becomes futile when they are on the last leg of their lives. The incarceration loses its objectivity when the inmate is a sick and infirm middle-old.”
The Court then laid down what amounts to a working direction for judges dealing with elderly applicants, while carefully preserving the exceptions:
“Unhealthy old age is a curse. It is inhumane to deny bail to middle-old people, or to those who are so sick that it is better for them to receive treatment outside prison walls; subject to the exception like the inmate is a recidivist who refuses to mend their ways, or is at flight risk, or that the criminal is of extreme perversity, or that the crime is so heinous or so cruel, that releasing such person on bail would be more disastrous to the society. Denying bail in such cases can be unkind and goes against the conscience of the Court. Thus, whenever a person above 75 years of age with health issues is in custody, the concerned Judge must have the spine to do justice and examine the health and old age related issues with utmost sympathy and concern, and before rejecting the bail application of a person above 75 years of age, the Court must document the reasons for the same.”
On the statutory bar, the Bench held that the special conditions imposed by the PMLA must yield where continued custody would defeat the right to life:
“The rigors of section 45 under PMLA cannot be a hindrance if someone is medically so unfit that the treatment inside the closed walls of the prison becomes a mere formality. Accordingly, denying bail would violate such a person’s right to life, which can be taken only by due process of law and is a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.”
The Court drew on a line of Supreme Court authority, including Tulsi Ram Yadav v. State of Uttar Pradesh, Shoma Kanti Sen v. State of Maharashtra, Sanket Balubhai Patel v. Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Gautam Kundu v. Manoj Kumar, Bachhu Yadav v. Directorate of Enforcement and Sheikh Javed Iqbal v. State of Uttar Pradesh, the last of which holds that a constitutional court is not restrained by restrictive statutory provisions where it finds an infringement of Article 21.
Prolonged custody, and a pointed remark on the agency
Recording that the custody certificate dated August 17, 2026 showed the petitioner had spent five years, one month and twelve days in custody in this case, the Bench held that he was entitled to bail on the ground of prolonged custody quite apart from his age and health. It then drew a distinction between the predicate offence and the laundering offence, and made an observation that is likely to be widely cited:
“It is always within the purview of the Enforcement Directorate to recover all the proceeds of crime traced to a precursor offense, but it would not mean that when the trial is not being concluded for such a long time, the person should still be kept in custody because of the inability and the inefficiency of the Enforcement Directorate to recover the money, or furthermore for the loopholes in the statute itself.”
The Bench noted that the large quantity of narcotics allegedly involved pertains to the offence under the NDPS Act, which carries its own rigours under Section 37, whereas the PMLA offence concerns the conversion and use of the alleged drug money.
The order, and what it does not do
Interim bail was granted from September 11 to December 21, 2026, subject to bail bonds of Rs 1,00,000 with one surety of like amount, with the petitioner directed to surrender by 11 am on December 22, 2026 to the prison from which he is released. If the bonds are not furnished within ten days, his counsel may apply to the trial court for reduction or waiver.
Two limitations in the order deserve emphasis. First, the Bench expressly recorded that its observations are tentative, are not an expression of opinion on the merits, and shall have no bearing on the trial or on the case of any co-accused. Second, the order states in terms that it is not a blanket bail order in any other matter and is confined to the ECIR in question. Given the agency’s submission that the petitioner stands convicted and sentenced in other cases, the practical effect of the order will depend on whether he is required to be held in custody elsewhere, a question the High Court did not address.
Why it matters
The judgment adds to a growing body of High Court reasoning on how the special bail regimes in statutes such as the PMLA, the NDPS Act and the UAPA interact with Article 21 when custody stretches over years. The Supreme Court’s decisions in K.A. Najeeb and Sheikh Javed Iqbal established that statutory rigours do not displace the constitutional guarantee where the right to a speedy trial has been infringed. What this order does is apply that reasoning to the specific situation of an elderly and seriously unwell undertrial, and it treats the twin conditions not as a threshold to be crossed but as a bar that simply does not operate in that situation.
Notably, the proviso to Section 45 of the PMLA already carves out an exception for a person who is sick or infirm, empowering the Special Court to grant bail. The order approaches the question from the direction of Article 21 rather than the proviso, which gives the reasoning a broader reach, since it is framed as a constitutional limit on the operation of the statutory bar rather than as an exercise of a discretion the statute itself confers.
The direction that a court must record reasons before rejecting the bail application of a person above 75 with health issues is the part most likely to be relied upon in future matters. It does not create a right to bail on age alone, and the Bench was careful to preserve exceptions for recidivism, flight risk and offences of extreme gravity. What it does is shift the burden of articulation, requiring that a refusal in such cases be explained rather than assumed.
Case Title: Davinder Singh Nirwal @ Dev v. Directorate of Enforcement [CRM-M-30971-2026]
Bench: Justice Anoop Chitkara and Justice Harmeet Singh Deol, High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh
Date of Decision: September 10, 2026
Appearances: Advocates Tanheer Singh Bariana and Jangveer Singh Bariana for the petitioner. Additional Solicitor General of India Satya Pal Jain with Advocate Akash Vashisth for the respondent Enforcement Directorate.