Section 43 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 is deceptively short, yet it is the structural keystone of the entire enforcement architecture. It tells us where the offence of money-laundering is tried, by whom it is designated, and the constitutional courtesy — consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court — that precedes the designation. Around this one provision the Supreme Court has built a rich body of law on cognizance, territorial jurisdiction, joint trial with the scheduled offence, and the consequences of acquittal in the predicate case. For the judiciary and CLAT-PG aspirant, mastering Section 43 means understanding how a humble Court of Session is statutorily re-clothed as a Special Court with its own peculiar grammar of procedure.
The bare text of Section 43
Section 43(1) provides that the Central Government, in consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court, shall, for the trial of an offence punishable under Section 4, by notification, designate one or more Courts of Session as Special Court or Special Courts for such area or areas, or for such case or class or group of cases, as may be specified in the notification. An Explanation appended to the sub-section clarifies that “High Court” means the High Court of the State in which the Sessions Court designated as a Special Court is functioning.
Section 43(2) supplies the joinder rule: while trying an offence under the Act, a Special Court shall also try an offence, other than the offence referred to in sub-section (1), with which the accused may, under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, be charged at the same trial. Two features deserve immediate emphasis. First, the forum is not a freshly created court but an existing Court of Session wearing a new statutory hat. Second, the designation is an executive act conditioned upon judicial consultation — a balance the drafters borrowed from comparable special-statute regimes. The offence to be tried is the offence punishable under Section 4, that is, the money-laundering offence defined in Section 3.
Why money-laundering needs a Special Court
Money-laundering is a continuing, transnational and document-heavy offence. Parliament, responding to the FATF framework discussed in our note on the genesis and FATF recommendations, concluded that ordinary magisterial trial machinery was ill-suited to it. By channelling every Section 4 prosecution into a Court of Session sitting as a Special Court, the Act guarantees a senior judicial officer, sessions-level sentencing powers (the offence carries rigorous imprisonment up to seven years, extendable to ten years for narcotics-linked predicate offences), and an integrated forum capable of trying the laundering charge alongside the predicate crime.
The Special Court is thus the litigation endpoint of a long chain that begins with provisional attachment of property and confirmation by the Adjudicating Authority on the civil side, and with arrest and complaint on the criminal side. The civil and criminal tracks run in parallel but converge conceptually on the same “proceeds of crime”.
There is also a deeper constitutional logic. In Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India, 2022 SCC OnLine SC 929, the Supreme Court characterised the PMLA as a sui generis statute aimed at a special, complex and well-organised class of economic crime, and held that the procedural deviations — including the special forum, the reverse burden under Section 24, and the twin bail conditions under Section 45 — were a reasonable legislative response proportionate to the gravity of the menace. The Special Court is the institutional expression of that legislative choice: a court senior enough to handle voluminous financial evidence, empowered to try the predicate and laundering offences together, and insulated by the consultation requirement from any perception of executive capture. Aspirants should appreciate that Section 43 is not a mere venue provision; it is the hinge on which the Act’s entire procedural architecture turns.
Designation by notification and the consultation requirement
The power under Section 43(1) is exercised by notification in the Official Gazette. The Central Government does not create judges; it designates already-functioning Courts of Session in a State as Special Courts “for such area or areas” or “for such case or class or group of cases”. This flexible language permits a single Special Court for an entire State, several Special Courts region-wise, or even a court designated for a specific class of cases.
The mandatory consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court is the constitutional safeguard. It ensures that the executive, which prosecutes through the Directorate of Enforcement, cannot unilaterally pick the bench that will try its own cases without the concurrence of the judicial head of the State. The Explanation tying “High Court” to the State in which the Sessions Court functions resolves any ambiguity in States with benches or in Union Territories sharing a common High Court.
The breadth of the designating language — “such case or class or group of cases” — deserves attention. It allows the Government to designate a Special Court not only territorially but also for a particular category of prosecutions, which is how, in practice, dedicated PMLA Special Courts have come to sit in metropolitan centres such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata. The notification fixes the court’s competence; once designated, that Court of Session exercises PMLA jurisdiction without any further committal step. A point sometimes overlooked is that designation does not strip the court of its ordinary sessions work — the same judge continues to function as a Court of Session for other matters and dons the Special Court mantle only when seized of a PMLA prosecution. This dual capacity is why Section 44 takes care to specify that the trial follows the Code of Criminal Procedure as it applies to a Court of Session, lest any doubt arise about which procedural template governs.
The Special Court is deemed a Court of Session
Because the designated court is a Court of Session, the Special Court inherits sessions-court procedure. Section 44(1) of the Act expressly directs that, save as otherwise provided, the Special Court shall, for the purpose of trial, follow the procedure prescribed by the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 for trial before a Court of Session, and the person conducting the prosecution before it shall be deemed to be a Public Prosecutor.
This deeming has practical bite. A metropolitan magistrate or judicial magistrate has no jurisdiction to try a Section 4 offence; the trial lies exclusively with the Court of Session sitting as a Special Court. The sentencing ceiling, the rules on framing of charge, the recording of evidence and the structure of the trial all follow the sessions-trial template, modified only where the PMLA carves out a special rule — most notably the cognizance mechanism examined next.
The deeming also settles the status of the prosecutor. Section 44(1) treats the person conducting the prosecution before the Special Court as a Public Prosecutor within the meaning of the CrPC, which carries consequences for the conduct of trial, the opportunity to be heard on bail under Section 45, and the proper officer to oppose discharge. Equally, because the forum is a Court of Session and not a magistrate’s court, the bar in Section 44(1) — that an offence under Section 4 shall be triable only by the Special Court — ousts the jurisdiction of every other criminal court for the laundering charge. A charge-sheet filed before, or a summons issued by, a magistrate in respect of a Section 4 offence would be without jurisdiction. This exclusivity is what makes the designation under Section 43 not merely permissive but jurisdiction-defining: until a Court of Session is designated for an area, there is, strictly, no competent forum to try the money-laundering offence committed there.
Cognizance without committal: the Section 44(1)(b) carve-out
Ordinarily, a Court of Session cannot take cognizance of an offence as a court of original jurisdiction except upon committal by a magistrate under Section 193 CrPC. Section 44(1)(b) PMLA reverses this. It empowers the Special Court to take cognizance of the offence under Section 3 without the accused being committed to it for trial, upon a complaint made by an authority authorised in that behalf. The investigation culminates not in a police report under Section 173 CrPC but in a complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate.
In Tarsem Lal v. Directorate of Enforcement, 2024 INSC 434 (decided 16 May 2024), the Supreme Court held that once the Special Court takes cognizance of the offence of money-laundering on a complaint under Section 44(1)(b), the Directorate of Enforcement becomes powerless to exercise its power of arrest under Section 19 in relation to that complaint. The Court further clarified that, as a normal rule, the Special Court should issue summons rather than a warrant to an accused who was not arrested before the complaint was filed, and that appearance pursuant to such summons does not amount to custody — so the accused need not apply for regular bail merely to answer the summons.
How the complaint is processed: Sections 200 to 204 CrPC
Once a complaint under Section 44(1) reaches the Special Court, the procedure under Sections 200 to 204 of the CrPC governs its disposal, because nothing in the PMLA overrides those provisions. A complaint by the Enforcement Directorate is treated as a warrant case instituted otherwise than on a police report, and under Section 204(1)(b) CrPC the Special Court may issue either summons or warrant.
Indian High Courts have held that, unlike a private complaint under the CrPC, the PMLA Special Court need not record detailed reasons for taking cognizance of an ED complaint, given the statutory scheme and the antecedent investigation. After the advent of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, courts have begun reading the proviso to its cognizance provision (requiring the accused to be heard before cognizance in complaint cases) into post-BNSS PMLA complaints — an evolving area aspirants should flag, while noting that the core Section 43 designation framework is untouched.
Joint trial of the scheduled offence and the laundering offence
Section 44(1)(a) provides that the offence punishable under Section 4 and any scheduled offence connected to it shall be triable by the Special Court constituted for the area in which the offence has been committed. Section 44(1)(c) supplies the machinery: if the court that has taken cognizance of the scheduled (predicate) offence is a court other than the Special Court that has taken cognizance of the money-laundering complaint, that court shall, on an application by the authorised authority, commit the scheduled-offence case to the Special Court, which shall then proceed to try it from the stage it stands.
In Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India, 2022 SCC OnLine SC 929, a three-Judge Bench upheld this architecture, confirming that the Special Court can try both the offence of money-laundering and the connected scheduled offence. A Madras High Court ruling in 2026 reiterated that Section 44(1)(c) mandates the court trying the scheduled offence — for instance a CBI court — to transfer that case to the Special Court on the ED’s application, so that the two prosecutions are heard together rather than in fragmented forums.
Territorial jurisdiction: Rana Ayyub
Because Section 44(1)(a) ties triability to “the area in which the offence has been committed”, the locus of the laundering activity fixes the competent Special Court. In Rana Ayyub v. Directorate of Enforcement, 2023 INSC 101 (decided 7 February 2023), the Supreme Court rejected the journalist’s challenge to the territorial jurisdiction of the Special Court at Ghaziabad. The Court explained that money-laundering under Section 3 comprises several distinct activities — acquisition, possession, concealment, use, projection or claiming as untainted — and the Special Court for any area where any of these activities occurs has jurisdiction.
The decision is doctrinally important because it decouples the laundering offence’s jurisdiction from that of the predicate offence and confirms that the offence’s continuing, multi-locational character widens the set of competent Special Courts. Aspirants should pair Rana Ayyub with the analysis of Section 3 to see how the definition of the offence drives the jurisdictional outcome.
The Special Court's jurisdiction depends on a surviving scheduled offence
A defining feature of PMLA prosecution is that the laundering charge is parasitic on a scheduled (predicate) offence: no proceeds of crime can exist without a predicate crime. In Vijay Madanlal Choudhary, the Supreme Court held at paragraph 187(v)(d) that if a person is finally discharged or acquitted of the scheduled offence, or the criminal case against him is quashed by a competent court, there can be no offence of money-laundering against him or anyone claiming property linked to the stated offence.
The consequence for the Special Court is direct: even though it has validly taken cognizance, the foundation of its money-laundering trial collapses if the predicate prosecution ends in acquittal, discharge or quashing. This is why Section 44’s joint-trial design matters — it lets the Special Court keep both threads in view. The principle is settled, though High Courts continue to refine its edges where multiple accused or partial acquittals are involved.
The dependence is, however, asymmetric in an important way. The collapse of the predicate prosecution defeats the laundering charge, but the converse does not hold: an ongoing or even a successful laundering investigation does not by itself validate a predicate offence. Moreover, Vijay Madanlal Choudhary recognised that the offence under Section 3 is a standalone offence dependent only on the existence of proceeds of crime traceable to a scheduled offence; it is not necessary that the laundering accused be prosecuted in the predicate case, a point sharpened later in Pavana Dibbur. For the Special Court, the practical discipline is to keep a continuous eye on the fate of the predicate proceedings — an acquittal, discharge or quashing in that forum is a jurisdictional fact it must act upon, even if reached after cognizance of the laundering complaint has been taken.
Who may be arraigned: Pavana Dibbur
A frequently tested nuance is whether an accused before the Special Court must also be an accused in the scheduled offence. In Pavana Dibbur v. Directorate of Enforcement, Criminal Appeal No. 2779 of 2023 (decided 29 November 2023), the Supreme Court held that an accused in a PMLA complaint need not be shown as an accused in the scheduled offence; it is enough that there exists a scheduled offence and that the person dealt with the proceeds of crime arising from it.
The Court also clarified that the offence of criminal conspiracy under Section 120-B IPC qualifies as a scheduled offence only where the object of the conspiracy is itself an offence listed in the PMLA Schedule — conspiracy cannot be a freestanding gateway to PMLA jurisdiction. For the Special Court, Pavana Dibbur defines the permissible array of accused and prevents the laundering net from being cast wider than the predicate-offence anchor allows.
Bail before the Special Court
The Special Court is also the first forum for bail in money-laundering cases, and here the twin conditions of Section 45 operate: ordinarily the Public Prosecutor must be given an opportunity to oppose, and the court must be satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing the accused is not guilty and is not likely to commit any offence on bail. In Vijay Madanlal Choudhary the Supreme Court upheld these stringent conditions as constitutionally valid, restoring the rigour that an earlier decision had diluted.
Read with Tarsem Lal, the position is that where the accused appears on summons after cognizance, the Section 45 twin conditions are not triggered merely by that appearance; the accused furnishes a bond under Section 88 CrPC, and the ED must move the Special Court if it seeks custody. This calibrates liberty against the otherwise demanding bail regime.
It is worth recalling the doctrinal back-story. The twin conditions in Section 45 had earlier been struck down in Nikesh Tarachand Shah v. Union of India, (2018) 11 SCC 1, as violative of Articles 14 and 21 because they were anchored to an arbitrary monetary threshold. Parliament amended Section 45 in 2018 to cure the defect, and in Vijay Madanlal Choudhary the Supreme Court upheld the revived twin conditions as constitutionally valid, holding that the legislature had removed the vice identified in Nikesh Tarachand Shah. For the Special Court, the upshot is that it must apply the twin conditions when entertaining a regular bail application, recording a satisfaction that there are reasonable grounds for believing the accused is not guilty and is unlikely to offend on bail. The Tarsem Lal gloss merely clarifies that mere appearance on summons after cognizance is not the trigger for that exercise; the rigour attaches when liberty is actually sought against custody.
Appeals from the Special Court
Section 47 of the Act prescribes the appellate route from orders and judgments of the Special Court. An appeal lies to the High Court — both on facts and on law — and is governed by the procedure of the CrPC applicable to appeals from a Court of Session, because the Special Court is itself a Court of Session. This is conceptually distinct from the civil appellate channel against attachment orders, where appeals run from the Adjudicating Authority to the Appellate Tribunal and thence to the High Court under Section 42.
The clean separation between the criminal appellate track (Special Court to High Court under Section 47) and the civil/attachment track (Tribunal to High Court under Section 42) is a favourite examination contrast and should be memorised alongside the attachment framework.
Interplay with CBI and other special courts
Predicate offences are frequently tried by their own special forums — CBI courts under the Prevention of Corruption Act, NDPS special courts, and so on. Section 44(1)(c) resolves the resulting overlap by requiring such a court to commit the scheduled-offence case to the PMLA Special Court on the ED’s application, so that one Special Court hears both the predicate and the laundering charge. The 2026 Madras High Court ruling underscored that this transfer is obligatory once the application is made, leaving no discretion to retain the case in a fragmented forum.
This consolidation prevents inconsistent findings — an acquittal in the predicate court and a conviction in the laundering court, or vice versa — and operationalises the dependence principle from Vijay Madanlal Choudhary. It also explains why high-profile PMLA matters routinely see the predicate FIR/CBI case migrate to the designated Special Court.
Exam takeaways and common traps
First, the designating authority is the Central Government, and consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court is mandatory — a common multiple-choice distractor swaps in the State Government or makes consultation optional. Second, the Special Court is a designated Court of Session, not a fresh court and not a magistrate; magistrates have no PMLA trial jurisdiction. Third, cognizance is taken on a complaint under Section 44(1)(b) without committal, not on a police report. Fourth, after cognizance the ED cannot arrest under Section 19 (Tarsem Lal). Fifth, the laundering trial cannot survive a final acquittal, discharge or quashing of the scheduled offence (Vijay Madanlal Choudhary, para 187(v)(d)). Sixth, territorial jurisdiction follows the area where any laundering activity occurred (Rana Ayyub). For the full statutory map, return to the PMLA notes hub.
Frequently asked questions
Which court is designated as a Special Court under Section 43 PMLA?
Only a Court of Session may be designated. The Central Government, in consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court of the State concerned, designates one or more Courts of Session by notification for the trial of offences punishable under Section 4. A magistrate cannot try a money-laundering offence.
Who designates the Special Court and is consultation with the judiciary required?
The Central Government designates the Special Court by notification, but only after mandatory consultation with the Chief Justice of the High Court. The consultation is a constitutional safeguard against the executive unilaterally choosing the bench that will try cases it prosecutes through the Directorate of Enforcement.
Does the Special Court take cognizance on a police report or a complaint?
On a complaint. Under Section 44(1)(b), the Special Court takes cognizance of the Section 3 offence on a complaint by an authorised authority, without the accused being committed to it for trial. In Tarsem Lal v. Directorate of Enforcement (2024 INSC 434) the Supreme Court held that after such cognizance the ED cannot arrest the accused under Section 19.
Can the Special Court try the scheduled offence along with the money-laundering offence?
Yes. Section 44(1)(a) makes both triable by the same Special Court, and Section 44(1)(c) requires any other court trying the scheduled offence to commit that case to the Special Court on the authority's application. Vijay Madanlal Choudhary v. Union of India (2022 SCC OnLine SC 929) upheld this joint-trial scheme.
What happens to the PMLA case if the accused is acquitted of the scheduled offence?
It cannot survive. In Vijay Madanlal Choudhary, para 187(v)(d), the Supreme Court held that if a person is finally discharged or acquitted of the scheduled offence, or the case is quashed, there can be no offence of money-laundering against him, because there are no proceeds of crime without a predicate offence.
How is the territorial jurisdiction of a PMLA Special Court determined?
By the area where the laundering activity took place. In Rana Ayyub v. Directorate of Enforcement (2023 INSC 101) the Supreme Court held that since money-laundering involves acquisition, possession, concealment, use or projection of proceeds, the Special Court for any area where any such activity occurs has jurisdiction, independent of where the predicate offence was committed.