Gauhati High Court Clarifies ‘Reason to Believe’ for Provisional Attachment Under PMLA Need Not Be Confidential or Excluded from Order
The Gauhati High Court has held that the ‘reason to believe’ recorded by the Authorized Officer under Section 5(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for issuing a Provisional Attachment Order (PAO) need not be kept confidential or excluded from the PAO itself. The Court found no jurisdictional error in including such reasons in the PAO and referred the issue to a larger bench for judicial consistency.
