Holding the stringent bail provision under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as arbitrary and unconstitutional, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down Section 45 of the Act, paving the way for accused to get out on bail as per the provision applicable to other offences. A bench of Justices R F Nariman and Sanjay Kishan Kaul said that the drastic provision which imposes two conditions for grant of bail—that the Public Prosecutor must be given an opportunity to oppose bail plea and the court must be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the accused is not guilty of such offence and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail—were violative of constitutional provisions by providing a procedure which was not fair or just. The bench said that the twin conditions set down in Section 45 were a much higher threshold bar than any of the conditions laid down by the apex court in its earlier verdicts. "We must not forget that Section 45 is a drastic provision which turns on its head the presumption of innocence which is fundamental to a person accused of any offence. Before application of a section which makes drastic inroads into the fundamental right of personal liberty guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution, we must be sure that such provision furthers a compelling state interest for tackling serious crime. Absent any such compelling state interest, the indiscriminate application of the provisions of the Section will certainly violate Article 21 of the Constitution," the bench said. The court passed the order on a batch of petitions filed by the accused challenging the validity of the provision. They contended that twin conditions imposed by Section 45 for bail were manifestly arbitrary, discriminatory and violative of the their fundamental rights under Article 14 and Article 21 of the constitution. Allowing their plea, the bench directed that plea of the petitioners, who were denied bail because of the presence of the twin conditions, be decided afresh. "All such orders are set aside, and the cases remanded to the respective courts to be heard on merits, without application of the twin conditions contained in Section 45 of the 2002 Act. Considering that persons are languishing in jail and that personal liberty is involved, all these matters are to be taken up at the earliest by the respective courts for fresh decision," it said. "This court upheld such a condition only because the offence under TADA was a most heinous offence in which the vice of terrorism is sought to be tackled. Given the heinous nature of the offence which is punishable by death or life imprisonment, and given the fact that the Special Court in that case was a Magistrate and not a Sessions Court, unlike the present case, Section 20(8) of TADA was upheld as being in consonance with conditions prescribed under Section 437 of the Code of Criminal Procedure," it said.