Hyderabad: The AP police, under pressure to crack down on illegal money lenders, has made a big legal mess by booking cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. While the PMLA 2002 clearly says that cases under this Act can be booked only by the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) the police of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Guntur Urban and Kadapa booked cases under PMLA.
According to ED the police can’t issue FIR under PMLA and it will not stand legal scrutiny. In districts like Kurnool, Kadapa and Anantapur it was inspectors and SIs who filed suo motu cases against financiers.
In the state, a total of 227 cases of call money were booked in which 188 accused has been arrested including CAs, traders and politicians. Except the case at the Vijayawada Macha-varam PS, sexual exploitation is not involved in other cases.
In the Machavaram case, police booked cases for rape and molestation under the criminal law amendment act. Interestingly, in the original call money sextortion case of Machavaram, no PMLA case was booked.
None of the cases booked by Vijayawada police is connected to the call money case. In addition to extortion and cheating the police added Sec 4 of PMLA.
